Frank Lavin is now Chairman, Public Affairs, Asia Pacific, at Edelman – the largest PR company in the Asia-Pacific region. He previously was Under Secretary for International Trade at the US Department of Commerce and Ambassador to Singapore. In those capacities he was responsible for Trade agreements with China, India, Singapore – among his other imprint on US Asian commerce policy. Now he lives in Hong Kong.

When the US was in a position that there might not have been a US pavilion at this year’s -  six months long – May 1 to Oct 31, 2010 – World Fair in Shanghai, he volunteered to organize one with the help of business companies, and the friendly assistance of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Now he can look and say – we did it! It took him a mere one year to put up a respectable “Great Hall of the American People” pavilion.

This fair will have three times as many visitors as the New York World Fair and will be the largest ever in every respect – in size – number of countries exhibiting – 189, number of heads of State visiting 100. There are 240 pavilions that include 57 that are not by governments – such as IOs, NGOs, and businesses. 40 million visitors have already seen it by August 14th. It is expected that 60 million Chinese and 10 million foreigners, will have seen the Fair by the time it closes.

I found it extremely interesting that the Fair includes pavilions for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao – very nice and non-controversial -  and the Chinese go and see them. Also interesting that in their statistics these lands are counted as foreign. I wonder how are displayed the Chinese provinces and how the competition between them is handled? Is a decentralized vuew of China allowed in the Chinese huge and very beautiful red and white Chinese pavilion?

The main item in the US pavilion is a film that shows a girl that sees through her window the need to plant a tree in order to beautify the neighborhood. This is a subtle way to tell the visitors – mainly Chinese – that with initiative and cooperation, one can change the world for the better. It is not a government, but the individual human spirit that does it. You learn that you are responsible for the environment and your actions count. The overall theme of this year’s Fair is “Better City , Better Life, so there is nothing revolutionary in the US story here except this interpretation that it calls for an individual response to environmental needs.

It is hoped that this will be appreciated by the average person in the region – the fact that the US did not come to toot its horn by showing off achievements of the past – the US makes rather attempts at cooperation with the Chinese in many areas of common interest. That reminded me of the G2 approach that President Obama initiated ahead of going to Copenhagen – now we see that it could also be a people’s action if people are ready to do what is right for their communities. Maybe we should recommend that Americans also go to see this US pavilion in Shanghai.

Asked what else he could have done for the pavilion, Frank Lavin said that besides the content for the 30 minutes he planed for there are several minutes of waiting time in line that could have been used. For the people in lines outside – there is entertainment that changes – visiting bands – so on. Several people in the Asia Society audience have already been to see the pavilion, quite a few more said that they are scheduled to go. Michael Roberts, Executive Director, New York Public Programs at Asia Society chaired the event.

Chinese Traffic Jam Extends 60 Miles and Nine Days

If ever there were a case for the importance of good urban planning that includes mass transit, this is it: a 62-mile traffic standstill on a road leading to Beijing is now in its ninth day, with individual drivers caught in it for as long as three days.

The cause of the jam — beyond the skyrocketing number of drivers in China — is heavy use of the route, the Beijing-Tibet expressway, by trucks bringing construction supplies into Beijing. The trucks don’t just add to traffic; they also damage the road, necessitating repair crews.

Read the rest of Chinese Traffic Jam Extends 60 Miles and Nine Dayshttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/ohttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=better_feedptions-general.php?page=better_feed

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UPDATED -  http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/08/24/…

Fareed Zakaria discusses CC with Jeff Sachs (Columbia), Pat Michaels (Cato, ex-UVA) & NASA’s Gavin Schmidt.
http://bit.ly/cCQO4Y

Pat Michaels says he is 40% funded by Petroleum Industry. There is no need to fight global warming.

Gavin Schmidt says he thinks we’re too sane not to do something about global warming.

Jeffrey Sachs says – if we do not act we will end up with a catastrophic planet.

Is it clear?

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

Fareed Zakaria talks to Hirsi Ali who rejected Islam and Irshad Manji who wants to reform Islam.

Hirsi Ali, African Black, born in Mogadisho, Somalia and immigrated to Holland where she went to university and after 9/11 left Islam to become an atheist that says if you need a God take Christ. Her family says she risks hell for leaving Islam.

She says don’t lock 1.57 billion Muslims in a book written in the 7th century. She wrote “Nomad” about her leaving Islam.

She worked with Teo Van Gogh on a movie “Submission” about women in Islam, when he was killed. She was a member of the Netherlands Parliament, and now lives with security in the US and is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

She says that most Americans are unaware of Saudi Funded proselytizing in America.

Irshad Manji , with Pakistani African complexion, born in Uganda, with her family escaped to safety the US in Idi Amin’s days. She heads project Ifthihad at the Moral Courage Institute at NYU. She wants to reform Islam. Good popular cause backed by a good university, but who listens? She tells about a group of young boys in Detroit listening to her mother.

At the Second International Conference on Climate, Sustainability and Sustainable Development in Semi-arid Regions, in Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil, during the days that a large part of Pakistan is already submerged under water, some of the parts that are not submerged – in the Baluchistan region, were subject of Pakistani presentations on water scarcity.

Desertification – the challenge of desertification and sustainable development in semi-arid regions:

“Participants attended this session on Monday and heard presentations on, inter alia, land degradation and desertification in the Arab region, and the management of scarce water resources in the drylands of Pakistan.

They also discussed a case study on the development of a hydro-environmental project in Canindé municipality, Ceará, Brazil, and noted ongoing adaptation work, including planting drought-resistant crop varieties.”

—————

The final insult, as described by Matthew Green in The Financial Times of today is to get both effects in the same location.

The story is about a farmer who owns one acre near the Indus river and this year lost his wheat crop because there was no water. Then of a sudden the river burst its banks and his home was washed away.

The people were telling their stories in a refugee camp at a school in Sukkur.

The article continues with plain truth:

“In future years, Pakistan’s ability to manage its dwindling water resources may play a bigger role in deciding whether a nuclear-armed country beset by poverty and an Islamist insurgency starts to prosper or face worse instability.

‘Water shortages are one of the biggest challenges Pakistan faces,’ said F.M. Mughal, a specialist in water issues in Sindh. “Unless the government takes action we will see huge numbers of people sinking deeper into poverty.”

Before the flood, the Indus had shrunk to little more than a muddy puddle in parts of Sindh, forcing farmers to rely increasingly on wells drawing saline groundwater that saps the fertility from their soil, hitting yields of cotton, rice and wheat.

Farmers cite the diversion of upstream waters to feed farms in the populous Punjab province, Pakistan’s agricultural heartland, as the chief drain on their river’s vigour. Skewed patterns of ownership place most of Sindh’s land in the hands of an elite who win a disproportionate share of waters distributed through a rotational irrigation system.”

So, diversion of water to feed Punjab agriculture left other rural areas wanting, but this is not all – the second effect comes from the melting Himalayan Glaciers:

“Melting Himalayan glaciers because of rising temperatures, have exacerbated Pakistan’s shortages, according to a 2009 report by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The World Bank says Pakistan could face a “terrifying” 30-40 per cent drop in river flows in 100 year’s time.

The result is that Pakistan may be more prone to both droughts and flood. As more water is diverted to feed agriculture, average flow speeds have fallen, dumping silt on river beds. Shallower channels are less able to cope with sudden rainfall, rendering Pakistan more vulnerable to extreme flooding.

In the weeks leading up to the recent floods, angry farmers marched through villages in Sindh demanding access to water. Those who can no longer turn a profit in the fields are increasingly resorting to banditry or migrating to urban shanties.”

And now the observation:

“Rural Sindh has proved more resistant to the radical Islamist ideology that has fuelled the Taliban insurgency in northwest Pakistan. But in southern Punjab, the rural poor have formed a ready pool of recruits for an array of militant organisations including Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

In Sukkur, as in many other parts of Pakistan, people have lost faith in the ability of President Asif Ali Zardari’s fragile coalition government to overhaul a water management system riddled with inefficiency and graft.”

“We are highlighting every problem, but are getting no response,” said Moinuddin Shaikh of Civil Society Sukkur, a pressure group.

Whether Sindh can solve its dearth of water after the floods will depend on how far Pakistan’s layers of provincial and federal administration can embrace change. Much of the public discussion about the floods has lamented the state’s failure to build more dams, though experts debate how far they might have averted the crisis.

Some say the government should focus on reducing the huge wastage in inefficient irrigation systems where up to 70 per cent of water is lost through evaporation and seepage.

“It’s a critical issue, but it’s a solvable issue,” said Daanish Mustafa, a water specialist and a senior lecturer at King’s College London. “But it needs a kind of imagination and creativity that the Pakistani water bureaucracy does not have.”

Let us remember, back in 1945 in San Francisco, at the founding of the UN, Brazil was considered the leading State outside the five WWII powers that became the Veto wielding P5. Brazil has had its ups and downs since then – quite a few downs – but now it is on a high up – clearly strongest and leading nation on the Southern half of the Western hemisphere.

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Expanding Alliances in the 21st Century: The U.S. and Brazil Unite to Address Matters of National Security

The recent signing of a new defense agreement between the Western hemisphere’s two dominant powers, Brazil and the United States, has brought about an important change to Latin America’s relations with the U.S. On April 12, 2010, Brazil took another step to enhance its geopolitical influence by signing the U.S.-Brazil Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA). The treaty will allow U.S. military cooperation on a Brazilian base with the aim of defending the hemisphere from illicit drug trafficking and to protect both countries’ national interests. As Brazil continues to be a linchpin of economic stability in Latin America and is increasingly viewed as being on its way to becoming a global superpower, the Brazilian government is realizing that its power comes with a price. The cost of such a position carries a price tag in terms of its security costs. Brazil has achieved a sufficiently high profile that it must significantly increase its defense so as to protect its population.

An Uneasy Past

Military relations between the two nations date back to World War II when Brazil participated in the Allied effort by providing troops to fight in the 1942 Italian Campaign. The first defense treaty between the two nations was created in 1952, with the signing of the Brazilian Military Assistance Agreement. The accord enabled the provisional exchange of major weapons and training by the United States to its Brazilian counterpart, as the countries proceeded to form a tenuous alliance that governed their bilateral ties during the Cold War1. However, this alliance was short-lived and suffered multiple blowouts. After Brazil’s 1964 military coup, the U.S. continued to provide military aid in the form of training and supplies in order to support the pro-U.S. governments that were in power. Nonetheless, the U.S. began to limit its assistance during this time.

For full article click here

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Juan Pablo Pitarque

August 19, 2010, before the UN started its meetings, the Asia Society in New York opened the discussion on the Pakistan Flood response by diving right to the bottom truth – the latest mega-disasters have one common cause – human induced climate change. It was Financier George Soros who injected the topic and the media was allowed by Ambassador Holbrooke to follow up. See what you can do when you go outside the UN!

Ambassador Dr. Richard C. Holbrooke, former Chairman of the Board of the Asia Society, and now US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan,  chaired the 8:30 am event at his New York home – the Asia Society – on the day when for 3:00 pm the UN General Assembly scheduled a pledging event for funding Pakistan relief. At the UN, for the US, spoke Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton, and I saw on TV  the complete  Asia Society American team sitting in the hall. The team included also Judith A. McHale, US Department of State Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Dr. George Erik Rupp, a theologian, President of the International Rescue Committee and former President of Rice University and Columbia University, and Raymond Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America.

The opening speaker after Ambassador Holbrooke was Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and the panel included also USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah. Then there was a list of guests that made their comments, followed by questions from the floor and answers from Administrator Dr. Shah and Ambassador Qureshi.

enlarge image
L to R: USAID’s Dr. Rajiv Shah, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke. (Else Ruiz/Asia Society)

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Judith A. McHale, a former media head herself ( President and Chief Executive Officer of Discovery Communications – 1987 to 2006), and now with the US Government, said that information is critical. “We work with the government of Pakistan to provide the critical information on the ground. It is posted on www.State.gov

Among the guests were Financier George Soros, whose Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations work on the ground in Pakistan – he announced that he adds another $5 million to the funds that his foundation will work with in helping directly civil society in Pakistan,  Christopher MacCormac of the Asian Development Bank, which is leading the effort to assess the flood damage, said much of the economic infrastructure of the area has been destroyed. 2 million ha. of crops were lost and livestock have been devastated, which has taken a large toll on Pakistan farmers. ADB has said that after the immediate contribution of $3 million from the ASia-Pacific Disaster Fund, it would loan Pakistan $2 billion to help the country rebuild, and Pakistan’s rock star turned political activist Salman Ahmad, known as Pakistan’s Bono, or as Holbrooke pointed out, “Bono is the Irish Salman Ahmad,” pointed out a very important topic:

“This is a defining moment in Pakistan,” Ahmad said. “This flood has set back Pakistan in a huge way. Out of 175 million people, 100 million are under 25. Those young people are skeptical, and they feel abandoned by the world. The international community has to win hearts and minds of those 100 million youth in Pakistan.” “If there is a sluggish response the terrorists/extremists win.” He also said that last year he had a concert at the UN to show to the young people in Pakistan that there was hope – he said that he is sure the international community will react positively.

Ambassador Holbrooke said that in the catastrophe there is also an opportunity, that we should not miss -  the people in Pakistan should see that the world is ready to help. He found that these elements of hope in opportunity were missing in the day’s article in The New York Times.

For the US the strategic implications are clear. The US pulled out helicopters from the military effort in order to help in the rescue effort. Will the Taliban take advantage of this? A US transport ship with materials arrived to Karachi, and Japan will now also send helicopters to help in the rescue effort.

The meeting was summarized by The Asia Society and there is also the full tape at -

 http://asiasociety.org/policy-politics/e…

Further, Ms. Nafis Sadik from the UN, now a Trustee Emeritus of the Asia Society and Chair of the Pakistan Foundation at the Asia Society called for Ramadan giving to the Foundation. Other Pakistan-Americans spoke and told of their own efforts to raise funds for the Pakistan relief program as the State’s capacity to meet the challenge has been overstretched. Today Pakistan , one fifth of its territory submerged, 68 million of its people affected, and 1,600 people dead, crops, animal stock, and infrastructure devastated – Pakistan is calling – humanity is calling they said. We saw a video proving every point. The Pakistan-American Foundation was inspired by Hilary Clinton’s “Pakistani Peacebuilders.”

Oxfam America was joined by “Save the Chidren” NGO  representative Gorel Bogarde said the obvious – what children most need is food, clean drinking water and shelter. She is most concerned for the moment about the outbreak of water-bourne diseases, such as cholera.

We will not repeat here further figures of loss and the size of the calamity. We assume that these are known by our readers by now – we want rather to point out the blunt comments that resulted from the statement by Mr. Soros who linked what happens to our lack of readiness to do something about the human-made climate change. Pakistan is the biggest of the recent disasters he said and we must deal with the root causes he continued. CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE ROOT CAUSE FOR ALL THESE RECENT DISASTERS. Mr. Soros spoke of the coincidence of the Himalaya glaciers melting and the monsoons getting stronger at the same time.

He also said “there is a certain amount of fatigue in responding to these disasters… [but] we have to come to terms with the fact that they are in fact connected, that there is climate change.”

At the Q & A part of the program, I asked the last question that was intended to bring the attention back to what Mr. Soros said.
My question was something like – I am with Sustainable Development Media and I wonder what Pakistan thinks about Mr. Soros’ statement about climate change – the reason being that the present calamity will repeat itself, so how does one do reconstruction work that makes sense?

Ambassador Holbrooke said Thank You and addressed the question first to Mr. Rajiv Shah.

When asked if there was a connection between the floods and climate change, USAID’s Shah said “while it’s very hard to attribute any single event to what we’re doing to our global environment it is very clear that that trend is leading to a greater number of large hurricanes, a greater number of floods, hotter and dryer conditions in places that are dependent on weather and rainfall for agriculture, and it’s making it very difficult for the least resilient, the most lower income communities of the world to survive.”

We heard from Mr. Christopher MacCormac that after the Earth Quake of 2005 the rebuilding of houses was done according to higher standards – so what we need here in the response to the present calamity is also to build better – but he did not specify, neither did Mr. Holbrooke. This, with the understanding that the increased monsoon floods,  joined with the melting of the Himalaya Glaciers, is indeed not a one time shot – but the beginning of a trend – leaves us with very bad premonitions about the future of Pakistan and other low lying lands of the region. This  has  clearly left me thinking about what means building better? Are we going to take into account these new phenomena resulting from global use of fossil fuels when going from the immediate reaction to the suffering from the floods to the longer range rebuilding stage? This is clearly an area that will be written up much more in the foreseeable future.

Ambassador Qurashi was asked by Mr. Holbrooke to react to the climate change implications. Are there additional run-off from the Himalayas?

The answer included: The Glaciers melt and what we have in Pakistan are Monsoon water plus glacier melts combined. We have above normal moisture.

He also said that “There are local NGOs in Pakistan that help push back the extremists and you have shown the world that you are a helping Nation.”

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from:

K N Vajpai (Climate Himalaya Initiative) <knvajpai@gmail.com>

August 19, 2010

For your information, the Climate Himalaya Initiative http://www.climatehimalaya.net has a dedicated news portal http://chimalaya.org/ , that updates the Climate Change related news on regular basis from Himalayan Mountains.

Those interested in Climate Change related issues and Mountains, can get regular updates by subscribing or becoming member.

The ongoing issues includes; Pakistan Floods, Leh Cloud Burst, Climate Change Modeling, Domestic Actions by countries, Actions by Asian countries, Cancun Climate Summit, Criticism of IPCC, etc…..!

There are options for subscription, membership, tweeting, facebook, among others….!

You can visit and explore at http://www.climatehimalaya.net

from – K N Vajpai
Convener and Theme Leader

Climate Himalaya Initiative
http://www.climatehimalaya.net
http://chimalaya.org
C/O Prakriti a mountain environment group
P.O. Silli, Agastyamuni, Rudraprayag
Uttarakhand, India PIN 246421
info@climatehimalaya.net
knvajpai@prakriti-india.org

The ordeal in Pakistan reminded us of the -

June 2, 2010

Himalayan countries must set aside their differences and  collaborate on science in order to avoid a common water crisis, says a report.

Environmental pressures, including those from climate change, could have unprecedented effects on the livelihoods of millions of people in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region, according to the study, published by the UK-based Humanitarian Futures Programme, the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, and China Dialogue. Yet scientific research is either non-existent or, where it exists, is not shared beyond a country’s borders, said the report, ‘The Waters of the Third Pole: Sources of Threat, Sources of Survival’. And scientists are failing to communicate what they do know to the public and policymakers, it added.

The Hindu-Kush Himalaya region provides water for one fifth of the world’s population including countries stretching from Pakistan to Myanmar. “This region is a black hole for data,” said Isabelle Hilton, editor of China Dialogue and a contributor to the report.

“Managing this water requires knowledge and cooperation,” she said at the launch of the report last week (19 May) in the United Kingdom. But the region “lacks the institutions and in some cases the political will to address issues cooperatively”. History, diverse languages and cultures, and military conflicts are behind the lack of a concerted effort to study the waters, she said, and now “a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach is needed” to catch up. But this is not high on the public agenda, she said.

Stephen Edwards, an earth scientist and research manager at the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, called for more high-quality, peer-reviewed data. “We need to understand problems before we know how to manage them,” he said. But science itself is not enough, he added, “scientists have to interact with economists and policymakers — we need proper dialogue”.

Andreas Schild, director general of the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, agreed with the report’s conclusions.”Water is one of the most important resources,” he said. “Traditionally there has been no free exchange of information on water discharge and this is practically still the case today. “It is not just a concern between countries, but even within countries, as between the individual states of India.

“Researchers in all concerned countries are very interested in having cross-border collaboration and exchange of information,” he told  SciDev.Net. “But when it comes to cooperation on concrete issues at the level of government institutions, we face a completely different situation, where agreements with various other partners in the country are required.”If you want to close the knowledge gap here in the Himalayas then you have to strengthen the institutions [there].”

Otherwise, short-term foreign development funds mean there is no consistent long-term data and continuity in research by the institutions based in the region, said Schild. But he added that European organisations, with “Europe-centric” research methods, must share the blame.

“A lot of research conducted on this region by European universities and other institutions is often not shared. Sometimes we even get the impression that they are only looking for a partner in the South to use as Sherpas.”

Link to full ‘The Waters of the Third Pole: Sources of Threat, Sources of Survival’ report
[2MB]

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/scienc…

In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming.

In Pakistan, Russia, The US …

• 
• 
• 
  Arif Ali/Agence France-Presse-Getty Images

  IN PAKISTAN – The worst flooding in at least 80 years has killed at least 1,384 people and affected 20 million in a continuing crisis.

By JUSTIN GILLIS

Published: August 14, 2010

• Times Topic: Global Warming

A blog about energy and the environment.

Go to Blog

The summer’s heat waves baked the eastern United States, parts of Africa and eastern Asia, and above all Russia, which lost millions of acres of wheat and thousands of lives in a drought worse than any other in the historical record.

Seemingly disconnected, these far-flung disasters are reviving the question of whether global warming is causing more weather extremes.

The collective answer of the scientific community can be boiled down to a single word: probably.

“The climate is changing,” said Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. “Extreme events are occurring with greater frequency, and in many cases with greater intensity.”

He described excessive heat, in particular, as “consistent with our understanding of how the climate responds to increasing greenhouse gases.”

Theory suggests that a world warming up because of those gases will feature heavier rainstorms in summer, bigger snowstorms in winter, more intense droughts in at least some places and more record-breaking heat waves. Scientists and government reports say the statistical evidence shows that much of this is starting to happen.

But the averages do not necessarily make it easier to link specific weather events, like a given flood or hurricane or heat wave, to climate change. Most climate scientists are reluctant to go that far, noting that weather was characterized by remarkable variability long before humans began burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“If you ask me as a person, do I think the Russian heat wave has to do with climate change, the answer is yes,” said Gavin Schmidt, a climate researcher with NASA in New York. “If you ask me as a scientist whether I have proved it, the answer is no — at least not yet.”

In Russia, that kind of scientific caution might once have been embraced. Russia has long played a reluctant, and sometimes obstructionist, role in global negotiations over limiting climate change, perhaps in part because it expected economic benefits from the warming of its vast Siberian hinterland.

But the extreme heat wave, and accompanying drought and wildfires, in normally cool central Russia seems to be prompting a shift in thinking.

“Everyone is talking about climate change now,” President Dmitri A. Medvedev told the Russian Security Council this month. “Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past.”

Thermometer measurements show that the earth has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the Industrial Revolution, when humans began pumping enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. For this January through July, average temperatures were the warmest on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Friday.

The warming has moved in fits and starts, and the cumulative increase may sound modest. But it is an average over the entire planet, representing an immense amount of added heat, and is only the beginning of a trend that most experts believe will worsen substantially.

If the earth were not warming, random variations in the weather should cause about the same number of record-breaking high temperatures and record-breaking low temperatures over a given period. But climatologists have long theorized that in a warming world, the added heat would cause more record highs and fewer record lows.

The statistics suggest that is exactly what is happening. In the United States these days, about two record highs are being set for every record low, telltale evidence that amid all the random variation of weather, the trend is toward a warmer climate.

Climate-change skeptics dispute such statistical arguments, contending that climatologists do not know enough about long-range patterns to draw definitive links between global warming and weather extremes. They cite events like the heat and drought of the 1930s as evidence that extreme weather is nothing new. Those were indeed dire heat waves, contributing to the Dust Bowl, which dislocated millions of Americans and changed the population structure of the United States.

But most researchers trained in climate analysis, while acknowledging that weather data in parts of the world are not as good as they would like, offer evidence to show that weather extremes are getting worse.

A United States government report published in 2008 noted that “in recent decades, most of North America has been experiencing more unusually hot days and nights, fewer unusually cold days and nights, and fewer frost days. Heavy downpours have become more frequent and intense.”

The statistics suggest that the Eastern United States may be getting wetter as the arid West dries out further. Places that depend on the runoff from spring snow melt appear particularly vulnerable to climate change, because higher temperatures are making the snow melt earlier, leaving the ground parched by midsummer. That can worsen any drought that develops.

“Global warming, ironically, can actually increase the amount of snow you get,” said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “But it also means the snow season is shorter.”

In general, the research suggests that global warming will worsen climate extremes across much of the planet. As in the United States, wet areas will get wetter, the scientists say, while dry areas get drier.

But the patterns are not uniform; changes in wind and ocean circulation could cause unexpected effects, with some areas even cooling down in a warmer world. And long-established weather patterns, like the periodic variations in the Pacific Ocean known as El Niño, will still contribute to unusual events, like heavy rains and cool temperatures in normally arid parts of California.

Scientists say they expect stronger storms, in winter and summer, largely because of the physical principle that warmer air can hold more water vapor.

Typically, a storm of the sort that inundated parts of Tennessee in May, dumping as much as 19 inches of rain over two days, draws moisture from an area much larger than the storm itself. With temperatures rising and more water vapor in the air, such storms can pull in more moisture and thus rain or snow more heavily than storms of old.

It will be a year or two before climate scientists publish definitive analyses of the Russian heat wave and the Pakistani floods, which might shed light on the role of climate change, if any. Some scientists suspect that they were caused or worsened by an unusual kink in the jet stream, the high-altitude flow of air that helps determine weather patterns, though that itself might be linked to climate change. Certain recent weather events were so extreme that a few scientists are shedding their traditional reluctance to ascribe specific disasters to global warming.

After a heat wave in Europe in 2003 that killed an estimated 50,000 people, the worst such catastrophe for that region in the historical record, scientists published detailed analyses suggesting that it would not have been as severe in a climate uninfluenced by greenhouse gases.

And Dr. Trenberth has published work suggesting that Hurricane Katrina dumped at least somewhat more rain on the Gulf Coast because the storm was intensified by global warming.

“It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability,” Dr. Trenberth said. “Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.”

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

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Hotels Help Brazil’s Boom

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

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Brazilian and Chilean Airlines Merge into Biggest LatAm Carrier

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

We are engaged in a project which seeks to address the problem of climate change displacement.
The focus of our project is a proposal for a convention for persons displaced by climate change.

Please find attached a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about our climate change displacement convention.
The FAQs can also be found at the ‘Documents’ page of our project website – www.ccdpconvention.com.

Our proposed convention would largely operate prospectively; assistance to climate change displaced persons would be based on an assessment of whether their environment was likely to become uninhabitable due to events consistent with anthropogenic climate change such that resettlement measures and assistance were necessary.  In other words, displacement is viewed as a form of adaptation that creates particular vulnerabilities requiring protection as well as assistance through international cooperation.

If you have any questions about the paper please contact me at d.hodgkinson@hodgkinsongroup.com or on +61 402 824 832.

Best wishes
David

___________________________

David Hodgkinson

The Hodgkinson Group

+61 402 824 832 (international)

0402 824 832 (within Australia)

www.hodgkinsongroup.com

www.ecocarbon.org.au

www.ccdpconvention.com

From the Desk of Dr. James E. Hansen

to:		pj@sustainabilitank.com
date:		Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 2:52 PM

What Global Warming Looks Like…So Far

What Global Warming Looks Like discusses current global temperature anomalies in July 2010; see also summary and full paper accepted for publication in Reviews of Geophysics.

We found among our REFERRERS a terrific blog and in turn we recommend it to you – our readers:

http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/

Thursday, August 12, 2010

This IS America

The blogger seems to be:

About Me

Gail

New Jersey, United States

The summation of my motivation for starting this blog can be found at my WWF Witness Profile here:  http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/abo…. Beyond that, I post random thoughts and musings from Wit’s End, a little farm I share with a dog, 2 indoor cats and 2 barn cats, a flying squirrel (Whippersnapper), Sun Conure (Bird), African Grey (Simon), a dozen chickens, a pair of peafowl, sundry koi in the pond, and various wildlife visitors, most notoriously among them, a voracious fox.

View my complete profile

googletracker – It’s Over -

First I got worried about trees. They all looked sickly, or even dead – and that’s what led me, much to my detriment, to learn more about climate change than I had dreamed in my worst nightmares could possibly be happening, in my backyard, in the lifetime of myself and my children…and extreme weather, and peak oil, and collapse of the ocean food chain from acidification, and mass extinction, and everything happening much faster than predicted, and, and…See please and think -

“Technological Progress is Like an Axe in the Hands of a Pathological Criminal”

- So said Albert Einstein.

- – - – - = – - – - – - – - – - -

and quoting

“The Fallacy of Climate Activism” by Adam Sacks

“Telling the Truth

If we climate activists don’t tell the truth as well as we know it—which we have been loathe to do because we ourselves are frightened to speak the words—the public will not respond, notwithstanding all our protestations of urgency.

And contrary to current mainstream climate-activist opinion, contrary to all the pointless “focus groups,” contrary to the endless speculation on “correct framing,” the only way to tell the truth is to tell it. All of it, no matter how terrifying it may be.

It is offensive and condescending for activists to assume that people can’t handle the truth without environmentalists finding a way to make it more palatable. The public is concerned, we vaguely know that something is desperately wrong, and we want to know more so we can try to figure out what to do. The response to An Inconvenient Truth, as tame as that film was in retrospect, should have made it clear that we want to know the truth.

And finally, denial requires a great deal of energy, is emotionally exhausting, fraught with conflict and confusion. Pretending we can save our current way of life derails us and sends us in directions that lead us astray. The sooner we embrace the truth, the sooner we can begin the real work.

Let’s just tell it.”

President Obama was supposed to go to Jakarta, but first postponed, then canceled the trip. Whatever the official explanation – Jakarta responded and was a no-show at the Washington meeting of the large economies (in effect we did raise the question with the US Department of State and on the record – we did not get a satisfactory answer and reported accordingly).

We saw a series of missteps that eventually will have to be corrected. We wrote about that earlier and moved Indonesia into the front page of our website with the understanding that the largest Muslim country that is a democracy with a growing middle class, will eventually live up to its potential of being a world leader. The following article strengthens us in above belief.

We also expect Indonesia to move on issues of Sustainable Development and Climate Change as it stands only to gain by becoming home to clean technologies. Indonesian leaders understand that much of their recent environmental disasters are global warming related – they also can be counted upon in efforts to restrain the forces of aggressive extreme Islam.

———————————————————-

After Years of Inefficiency, Indonesia Emerges as an Economic Model.

Enny Nuraheni/Reuters

After years of being known for inefficiency, corruption and instability, Indonesia is becoming an economic powerhouse in Asia.

By AUBREY BELFORD, an Independent journalist based in Indonesia. //

JAKARTA — After years of being known for inefficiency, corruption and instability, Indonesia is emerging from the global financial crisis with a surprising new reputation — economic golden child.

Adi Weda/European Pressphoto Agency
In Jakarta, worsening traffic and a proliferation of megamalls are seen as signs of the growing strength of the middle class.

The country’s economy, the largest in Southeast Asia, grew at an annual rate of 6.2 percent in the second quarter of this year, data released Thursday showed. That is an acceleration from 2009, when gross domestic product expanded 4.5 percent.

The stock market hit a record high last week and has been among the best-performing equities markets in Asia this year, rising more than 20 percent since Jan. 1. The country’s currency, the rupiah, has appreciated nearly 5 percent this year against the dollar, among the strongest showings in Asia besides that of the yen.

Foreign direct investment, which was held in check for years after the 1997 economic crisis in Asia, is also returning. The country had 33.3 trillion rupiah, or $3.7 billion, in foreign direct investment in the second quarter of this year, a 51 percent rise from a year earlier, the Investment Coordinating Board in Indonesia said last week. The country is on track to attract more foreign investment this year than it did in 2008, when it lured in $14.87 billion.

Such statistics have some here cautiously saying that the country, a Muslim-majority democracy and one of the world’s most populous countries, could soon merit the kind of attention that investors now lavish on China and India.

“Indonesia is one of the most interesting, most attractive destinations in the world,” said Lanang Trihardian, an analyst at Syailendra Capital, a fund management firm based in Jakarta. “Foreign investors have been flowing to Indonesia from maybe around mid-2009. We are seeing a lot of liquidity coming into Indonesia, and it is mostly going to capital markets, to bonds, to stocks.”

Undoubtedly, significant obstacles to sustained growth remain. Despite progress on corruption, investors complain of confusing regulations and labor laws that make it difficult to dismiss employees. Little infrastructure has been built since the Asian economic crisis in 1997, and rolling blackouts have plagued the country for years. While the education system has been successful in fulfilling basic requirements like literacy, the universities and colleges in the country are widely considered archaic.

But more than a decade after the chaotic overthrow of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998 — and subsequent fears of disintegration at the hands of separatist groups, as well as the threat of Islamic militancy — the country seems to have stabilized. It is rich in natural resources like palm oil, copper and timber, commodities that are in great demand in China.

The administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won plaudits for reducing debt and has achieved some success fighting graft. Mr. Yudhoyono was resoundingly re-elected to a second five-year term in 2009, and changes aimed at introducing more democracy have seen power devolved to local governments, where elections have been largely peaceful, orderly affairs.

In one sense, Indonesia appears more attractive these days because much of the rest of the global marketplace looks so gloomy. Its low debt, high growth and a sense of optimism compare favorably with a mood of despondency in developed markets like the United States, Japan and Europe.

The huge consumer market in the country, accounting for more than two-thirds of G.D.P., has largely been credited for maintaining growth. Although the global economic crisis crimped confidence, Indonesia’s relatively young population of 240 million and government stimulus policies, as well as a popular program of direct cash transfers to the poor, have kept consumption humming.

In Jakarta, worsening traffic and a proliferation of megamalls are seen as signs of the growing strength of the middle class. At the center of the capital, the huge Grand Indonesia mall opened in 2007 and expanded during the global downturn, adding theme areas with mockups of New York, Japan, the Arabian Peninsula and Paris, complete with a miniature, spinning Moulin Rouge windmill.

“We’re selling international brands here so Indonesians don’t have to shop abroad for them,” said Teges Prita Soraya, a spokeswoman for the mall, adding that trade, largely in imported luxury brands, had surged ahead despite the global crisis.

The mall is home to the country’s first branch of Harvey Nichols, the upscale British department store, and has boutiques for luxury brands like Chanel, Armani and Dolce & Gabbana — which already have branches in other malls across the city.

Yet there is criticism that economic growth has had less effect than it should have for the majority. About 15 percent of the population lives below the country’s official poverty line of around $1 a day, but advocates for the poor say the percentage would be larger if Indonesia set the bar a little higher, say, at $1.25. Relatively sluggish growth in labor-intensive industries has meant slow progress in curbing unemployment, which is over 7 percent.

The New York Times

The government believes that one solution to moving to a higher level of sustained growth is foreign investment, particularly in industries like manufacturing. The government’s investment coordinating board, known as BKPM, is hoping to attract $30 billion to $40 billion in annual foreign investment by 2015 — three to four times as much as it achieved last year, said Gita Wirjawan, head of the agency.

In an economy currently worth $650 billion a year and expected to grow to $1 trillion in five years, that is not terribly much. But it is “optically” very important for establishing Indonesia as a serious investment destination, he said.

“It’s not a slam-dunk, but it’s achievable,” he said.

Indonesia gets the largest share of its foreign investment from within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, with non-Asean states like Japan and South Korea, as well as European countries, making up much of the rest.

Indonesia is working to change rules to make it easier to acquire land for infrastructure and is seeing interest in infrastructure investment, Mr. Wirjawan said.

The government recently eased investment rules in areas including health care, construction and electricity generation. At the same time, it is working to put the flow of “hot,” or speculative, money to better use, passing rules on government bonds requiring foreign investors to keep their money in the country for longer.

Such efforts seem to be paying off. The government announced this week that China’s sovereign fund, China Investment Corp., was hoping to invest $25 billion in infrastructure projects in Indonesia. Posco, the South Korean steel giant, signed a $6 billion deal on Wednesday to build a plant in Indonesia with the local producer Krakatau Steel.

While investment in manufacturing still lags behind other sectors, Mr. Wirjawan said that Indonesia, with its relatively low labor costs, was reaping the benefits of rising costs in regional competitors.

“We’re seeing an increasing relocation of factories by the Taiwanese, the Koreans and Japanese from Vietnam and China, given their rising labor costs and given the increased stability that people are seeing in Indonesia from an economic and political standpoint,” he said.

The Indonesian Footwear Association has said that major brands including Asics, Mizuno and New Balance have shifted part of their production to Indonesia this year because of rising costs elsewhere. Indonesia’s footwear industry employs 640,000 people and exported $1.8 billion worth of goods in 2009, said the association’s chairman, Eddy Widjanarko. Producers are hoping to increase that figure to $2 billion this year.

Katja Schreiber, a spokeswoman for Adidas — which has also been aggressively expanding production in Indonesia — said the country, its third-biggest supplier, offered “abundant labor availability, good quality, competitive prices and political stability.” Although production here is growing rapidly, she said, it is not happening at the expense of its top suppliers, China and Vietnam.

The local stock market has reflected the perceived strengths of the economy. Shares related to commodities, Indonesia’s main export sector, have been strong earners. Banking stocks have risen along with the generally upbeat mood on consumption and the relatively good health of the sector, which, for the most part, weathered the credit crisis reasonably well. Major consumer shares like Unilever Indonesia and the car distributor Astra International have been consistent leaders on the local index.

All this exuberance has raised some fears that inflation could become a big problem. The country’s central bank, Bank Indonesia, decided to hold its benchmark interest rate at 6.5 percent this week, despite a jump in annual inflation to 6.22 percent in July.

Regardless, many feel that Indonesia’s time has come again.

“In Asia there is a feeling that after you invest in China and after you invest in India, where are you going to invest? said Fauzi Ichsan, senior economist for Standard Chartered in Indonesia.

“It’ll have to be Indonesia. It’s a natural destination.”
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/busine…

Oldest university on earth is reborn after 800 years.

Nalanda, an ancient seat of learning destroyed in 1193, will rise again thanks to a Nobel-winning economist.

By Andrew Buncombe

GETTY IMAGES

The ruins of Nalanda, the 2,000-year-old Buddhist University near Rajgir in the northern part of India.

Mandela Day 2010: Make SA work, and fix our schools.

July 14, 2010

Members of the public can donate money towards the restoration of local schools, as their way of commemorating Mandela Day 2010.

On July 18 this year, all South Africans have been invited to give 67 minutes of their time to projects that honour the life and spirit of Nelson Mandela.

The NGO Men On the Side of the Road (MSR) has thrown its full support behind the Mandela Day campaign. MSR is a marketplace for casual workers where men gather at organised collection points in seven cities across South Africa.

MSR has decided to focus on the restoration of schools, as a way of linking with the education theme of this year’s Mandela Day.

“Not everyone can give their time to the Mandela Day campaign. Instead, why not donate 67 minutes of their earnings,” suggested Peter Kratz, national director for MSR. “Our registered painters and builders in seven cities can be called in to fix local schools in dire need of a facelift. The money donated by members of the public will make this restoration work possible and cover the costs of hiring workers and purchasing materials.”

Customers in seven cities can visit MSR collection points if they are looking for workers, on a part time or contract basis, that are able, trustworthy and skilled in particular areas. MSR have verified all their skills and workers have identity cards on them at all time.

With unemployment at critical levels, the MSR aims to facilitate the placement of skilled and semi skilled workers in part-time or full-time work. For as little as R120 per day potential employers can hire a reliable and trustworthy worker.

Kratz hopes that members of the public will nominate a school in their community which is in need of restoration work. The money they donate will be used for work on that specific school, to help make quality education a reality for its learners.

Donations can be deposited at Standard Bank, account name MEN ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD, account number 070-956-383 (reference MD).

Call 0861 WORKER (0861 967537), email info@employmen.co.za or visit www.employMen.co.za for more info.

——————————–

Issued by:
HWB Communications (Pty) Ltd

Contact:        Martin Slabbert

Telephone:     (021) 462 0416
Fax:             (021) 462 0427
Mobile :         079 500 1503
Email:           martin@hwb.co.za

On behalf of: Men on the Side of the Road (MSR)

——————————-

• MSR is a marketplace for thousands of casual workers.
• MSR has organised collection points in seven cities around South Africa.
• Customers can collect a worker for part-time, contract or full-time work, knowing that the people the hire are able, trustworthy and skilled in particular areas.
• Details of all MSR members are loaded onto a database, which carries a record of their identity number and photograph, skills training, references and recommendations, ensuring customers will be matched with the best worker for a particular job, be it building, rubble removal, gardening, cleaning or window washing, to name a few.
• MSR started out of a human rights initiative back in 2001 when men were being arrested for “loitering” (which implies without intent), while in fact they were gathering to find work at various collection points around the city. The Cape High Court ruled that these men had a right to seek work. A local businessman, Charles Maisel, took a particular interest in the case and the plight of these men to survive and founded MSR. Since then, Peter Kratz, who heard about the project on returning to South Africa after living abroad for six years, has become involved and is dedicates much of his time to developing the organization.
• MSR is now a nationwide force representing thousands of work seekers of both genders in all the main cities in the country.

 http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelea…

Not Enough Hours in the Day for Endangered Apes.

A study on the effects of global warming on African ape survival suggests that a warming climate may cause apes to run ‘out of time’.

The research, published today in Journal of Biogeography, reveals that rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns have strong effects on ape behaviour, distribution and survival, pushing them even further to the brink of extinction.

The researchers, from Roehampton University, Bournemouth University and the University of Oxford used data from 20 natural populations to model the effects of climate change on ape behaviour and distribution. The results suggest that rising temperatures and shifts in rainfall patterns alone may cause chimpanzees to lose up to 50% and gorillas up to 75% of their remaining habitats.

This loss of habitat, according to the researchers, is caused by the fact that apes run out of time, as with increasing environmental temperatures apes will have to spend more time resting to avoid over-heating, making some habitats uninhabitable.

The study further suggests that chimpanzees will also experience a shift in diet from containing predominantly fruits to leaves.

Lead author Julia Lehmann, from Life Sciences at Roehampton University, said: ‘In reality, the effects of climate change on African apes may be much worse, as our model does not take into account possible anthropogenic effects, such as habitat destruction by humans and the hunting of apes for bushmeat.’

‘Our results highlight that solving the direct local threats, such as hunting and habitat loss due to human activities, may not be sufficient to prevent the extinction of African apes.

Ensuring safe havens in optimal habitat must be a critical component of any conservation strategy, lest all current conservation efforts prove to be in vain.’

This research carried out by staff and students from the Centre of Research and Evolutionary Anthropology (CREA) at Roehampton features regularly in the popular and scientific media. CREA was founded in 2002 in recognition of the strengths in evolutionary aspects of biological anthropology at Roehampton.

——————————

“COMMON WEALTH:  Economics for a Crowded Planet.”

by Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs

A New York Times Bestseller

Penguin Books, 2008

ISBN 978-1-59420-127-1  (hc.)

ISBN 978-0-14-311487-1 (pbk.)

386 p.

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

The obligatory textbook for any would-be policy maker in the Twenty-first Century.

Don’t elect any one to Congress unless he testifies that he has read this book.

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

We have a crowded planet and there are common challenges – it does not matter where you live.
We all get nourished from a source of common wealth that we must learn to honor as Environmental Sustainability.

We tried to draw a system in our own “Promptbook on Sustainable Development For The World Summit in Johannesburg August 2002,” but Professor Sachs did a much better job then I was able to do and I tip my hat before him.

Professor Sachs, with his knowledge, and with the tremendous resources of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, clearly achieved a much larger scope then we could have attempted – his book is full of data and still readable – even by policy makers that are not economists.

“Lucid, quietly urgent, and relentlessly logical . . . this is Big think with capital B.” says the New York Times Book Reviewer quote on front cover – and he is right.

——————————————————————————-

Let us start from the realization that the 20th Century saw the end of European dominance of global politics and economics and the 21st Century will witness the decline and end of American dominance.

The world is passing to new powers – China, India and Brazil.

Our own estimate is that Europe could have held on for a little longer had the European Union succeeded in creating a real Union – but in the form of the present cloud of competing States it is finished. The US, had it presented a united leadership, it could also have competed for a while longer, but as we heard today, from Senator Kerry on the Fareed Zakaria show, with the ongoing obstructionism in US Senate, we just watch how China has moved from 5% of the global production of solar panels – just two years ago, to the global production in 2010 of 60% of those panels, and this week’s announcement that the US Senate is incapable of gathering 60 votes for a Climate & Energy Bill this year – and hearing just one day after that the Chinese say that they are going to cap carbon emissions – this means that “WE WILL BE RIPPED OUT OF THE MARKET PLACE – WE ARE CUTTING OUR OWN THROAT HERE,” concluded Senator Kerry.

And why does this happen? The established economies grow fat and complacent – the world turns to new ideas from large and hungry Nations that are ready to learn fast and innovate and grow. They push the old mush to the sideways. Can the obfuscating politicians understand this?


——————————————————————————

The mush starts from the refusal to recognize that resources are scarce, there are environmental stresses, and there will be large areas that become eventually uninhabitable leading again to great mass migration, clashes of civilization, warfare and mayhem. The above will be reinforced by the human created climate change, that gets super imposed on the power change to new Mega-Nations of more then a billion people each, and we must note that the world population has risen by 4 billion people in the span of just 60 years since 1950 – the Korea War – that came after what was thought to be the start of a post WWII peace.

For the world to save itself we must recognize the Anthropocene, when human activity became the dominant driver of the natural environment, and look for Global Solutions to Climate Change and Water Needs – to start a new strategy of Economic Development, end poverty traps, and create economic security in this changing Globalized World.

Our leaders must rethink Foreign Policy in the light of Global Goals which Prof. Sachs ends up as defining as “The Power of One.”

He points out that we are not only the subjects of history, carried along by blind forces, but agents of history.

Further, we have to gird ourselves against the unholy trinity of reactionary rhetoric identified by the great development economist Albert Hirschman. He noted that every new idea for constructive change is met with three attacks.

The first is futility: the course of reform cannot work because the problem is unsolvable.

The second is perversity: any attempt at solution will actually make matters worse.

The third is jeopardy: attempting to solve the problem will take attention and resources away from something even more important.

This negativism is a state of mind, not a view based on facts.

Relentless acceptance of the status quo is not acceptable in the face of the challenges we confront.

Hugo Chaves, with rampant inflation in his country and a tanking economy, threatened that if Colombia pursues his friends of the FARC, he will stop exports of oil to the US.

So what? Did he think it over what he said? He exports 44% of Venezuela’s oil to the US which gets just 6% of its imports from Venezuela – this at a time there is plenty of oil in the world market and there will be ample competition to sell to the US.

15% of Venezuela GDP comes from the sales to the US that make up for 25% of its foreign currency in-flow that amounts to $80 million/day. Nothing to sneeze at!

So, will Venezuela tie itself for the long haul to China – the far away market – rather then ponder to the US – the next door buyer?

If he wants to do that – call his bluff now and let him dry on his own words. He just is no armed Ahmedi-nejad less he forgot that – and there is no chance he ever can become one!

1500 FARC rebels are in Venezuela.

——————

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC).

Established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, the FARC is Colombia’s oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped Marxist insurgency. The FARC was governed by a secretariat, led by septuagenarian Manuel Marulanda (a.k.a. “Tirofijo”) and six others, including senior military commander Jorge Briceno (a.k.a. “Mono Jojoy”). In March 2006, Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General of the United States, announced in conjunction with Drug Enforcement Administration and United States Department of Justice officials that the US State Department had placed a $5 million dollar reward on Tirofijo’s head, or for information leading to his capture.^[3] But ‘Marulanda’ was never apprehended, and died of a heart attack on March 26, 2008. He was replaced as commander-in-chief by ‘Alfonso Cano‘.

Cano, now chief of FARC said in a video posted this week on an affiliated website. “We are still dedicated to looking for political exits. We hope that the government will reflect, that it won’t deceive the country anymore.”

Cano’s message is his first public reaction to the election of Santos, who as defense minister under President Alvaro UribeRaul Reyes delivered some of the biggest blows against the FARC, including a 2008 air strike in Ecuador that killed Raul Reyes, the guerillas’ No.2 leader.

The FARC is organized along military lines and includes several urban fronts.

In February 2002, the group’s slow-moving peace negotiation process with President Andres Pastrana’s administration was terminated by Bogota following the FARC’s plane hijacking and kidnapping of a Colombian Senator from the aircraft. On 7 August 2002, the FARC launched a large-scale mortar attack on the Presidential Palace where President Alvaro Uribe was being inaugurated. High-level foreign delegations—including the United States—attending the inauguration were not injured, but 21 residents of a poor neighborhood nearby were killed by stray rounds in the attack. President Uribe never forgot this and will pursue them to the last day of his Presidency that ends in 2010. What if he indeed bombs the FARC that hide across the border in Venezuela?

If Chaves reacts as he says – that will be great for alternative energy as well – even with the Republicans howling in US Congress. Will they stand up for Hugo Chaves.

Go Uribe!   Go Chaves!   GREENS are with both of you!