Monday, September 15, 2003
WTO Talks End / Collapse
So, no soap. The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Steven Chase) summarized that “poor countries refused to sign a deal that offered only timid cuts to the subsidies that rich countries pay their farmers.
The failure of talks is the second major defeat for the eight-year-old WTO, which tries to regulate and open up world trade. In December, 1999, similar negotiations collapsed amid rioting in Seattle.
‘It's Seattle without the tear gas,’ said Council of Canadians chairwoman Maude Barlow of the broken-down talks. She, like many other anti-globalization activists, loudly cheered the turn of events.
The talks ran out of steam because, for the first time in WTO history, developing countries refused to let the United States and Europe steer negotiations to suit their interests, said Ottawa trade consultant Peter Clark.”
Read More Here >
Meanwhile, Sweden voted to slow European consolidation by saying ‘no’ to adopting the Euro.
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Bush Administration continues to seek help, but the major countries- France, Russia, India- balk. The carrots dangled include loans to the cash-strapped (Turkey) and, as usual, sophisticated military hardware for anyone who wants.
Administration spokespersons did their usual blanketing of the airwaves on Sunday, talking up the “successes” in Iraq.
Depleted Uranium: This issue has lurked out there for a while. The Christian Science Monitor’s Catherine Stapp reported that concerns are growing about the presence of depleted uranium (DU) and other toxins in Iraq following a rash of illnesses among U.S. troops and the discovery by a reporter that radiation levels in parts of Baghdad are extremely elevated. She reported that more than 6,000 soldiers have been pulled out of Iraq for medical reasons since the start of the war. Since there have been 1,400 injured in combat or non-combat incidents, such as vehicle accidents, the majority were evacuated for various other physical or psychological illnesses.
British media had independently noted during Labor Day weekend that “dangerously high levels of radiation were measured around Baghdad, in fact levels between 1,000 and 1,900 times higher than normal were recorded at four sites around the Iraqi capital where depleted uranium (DU) munitions have been used.
We might recall that some veterans of the first Gulf War believed that DU exposure had played a role in leaving more than 5,000 of them chronically ill and almost 600 dead.
The Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific body, described the U.S.'s failure to confirm how much or where they used DU rounds as an "appalling situation.”
Jason Burke and Paul Harris in the Sunday Observer (London)similarly announced that the American casualties were 6,000, noting that “the figures will shock many Americans, who believe that casualties in the war in Iraq have been relatively light.” They added, “It is believed many of the American casualties evacuated from Iraq are seriously injured. Modern body armour, worn by almost all American troops, means wounds that would normally kill a man are avoided. However, vulnerable arms and legs are affected badly. This has boosted the proportion of maimed among the injured.”
WMD Update:
I wrote twice over the past month of the anticipated Kay Report that was to either claim that they had found evidence of an Iraqi wmd program, or hope that people would draw conclusions from a mound of paperwork that didn’t actually conclude that there was an active wmd program, let alone an “imminent threat” to the U.S. and allies.
Now, the mid-September release has been cancelled. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that its evidence was lacking. Then the Sunday Times of London reported that "Britain and America have decided to delay indefinitely the publication of a full report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction after inspectors found no evidence that any such weapons exist." Sify.com (India) re-produced the Times report, but it hasn’t been a subject in our press, as of yet.
Exit Strategy? The most conservative Weekly Standard (Reuel Marc Gerecht, 9/22) posits that there is an exit strategy: Though far from fine-tuned, the Bush administration has finally developed an exit strategy for Iraq. The strategy has two prongs. Through the State Department, the administration will seek to "internationalize" the forces of occupation by obtaining a new U.N. Security Council resolution that would "authorize" Turks, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Moroccans, Indians, and even the French to send their troops. Concurrently through the Defense Department, it will strive to create larger all-Iraqi police and military forces that can work together with--and ideally replace--American soldiers who battle former Baathists, militant Sunni fundamentalists, and foreign jihadists. The approaches are complementary and separable: No matter what happens in the Security Council, the Pentagon will increasingly hand off internal security to the natives, sooner rather than later.
Venezuela: Not yet!
The “recall” effort to oust President Hugo Chavez failed, as election authorities threw out an opposition petition for a referendum on ending his rule.
The National Elections Council ruled Friday that opponents violated Venezuela's Constitution by conducting the petition drive before the midpoint of Chavez's six-year term Aug. 19. Organizers collected more than 3 million signatures.
So, as was true in regards to Chile and Allende in 1970, Washington will work on other schemes to displace Chavez.
Perspective, via Jeffrey Sachs (Earth Institute, Columbia U.):
He’s been on NPR and in Saturday’s Globe. He calls for us to leave Iraq in multi-national hands. For those in missed- [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/13/a_better_use_for_our_87b?mode=PF]
This year Bush asked for only $200 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, a sum equal to 1.5 days of spending on the US occupying forces in Iraq. The US annual contributions to fight malaria are less than the costs of one day’s occupation, and as a result, 3 million Africans will die needlessly from that preventable and treatable disease. But who is talking about $87 billion for the 30 million Africans dying from the effects of HIV/AIDS, or the children dying of malaria, or the 15 million AIDS orphans, or the dispossessed of Liberia and Sierra Leone, or the impoverished children of America without medical insurance?
-R
So, no soap. The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Steven Chase) summarized that “poor countries refused to sign a deal that offered only timid cuts to the subsidies that rich countries pay their farmers.
The failure of talks is the second major defeat for the eight-year-old WTO, which tries to regulate and open up world trade. In December, 1999, similar negotiations collapsed amid rioting in Seattle.
‘It's Seattle without the tear gas,’ said Council of Canadians chairwoman Maude Barlow of the broken-down talks. She, like many other anti-globalization activists, loudly cheered the turn of events.
The talks ran out of steam because, for the first time in WTO history, developing countries refused to let the United States and Europe steer negotiations to suit their interests, said Ottawa trade consultant Peter Clark.”
Read More Here >
Meanwhile, Sweden voted to slow European consolidation by saying ‘no’ to adopting the Euro.
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Bush Administration continues to seek help, but the major countries- France, Russia, India- balk. The carrots dangled include loans to the cash-strapped (Turkey) and, as usual, sophisticated military hardware for anyone who wants.
Administration spokespersons did their usual blanketing of the airwaves on Sunday, talking up the “successes” in Iraq.
Depleted Uranium: This issue has lurked out there for a while. The Christian Science Monitor’s Catherine Stapp reported that concerns are growing about the presence of depleted uranium (DU) and other toxins in Iraq following a rash of illnesses among U.S. troops and the discovery by a reporter that radiation levels in parts of Baghdad are extremely elevated. She reported that more than 6,000 soldiers have been pulled out of Iraq for medical reasons since the start of the war. Since there have been 1,400 injured in combat or non-combat incidents, such as vehicle accidents, the majority were evacuated for various other physical or psychological illnesses.
British media had independently noted during Labor Day weekend that “dangerously high levels of radiation were measured around Baghdad, in fact levels between 1,000 and 1,900 times higher than normal were recorded at four sites around the Iraqi capital where depleted uranium (DU) munitions have been used.
We might recall that some veterans of the first Gulf War believed that DU exposure had played a role in leaving more than 5,000 of them chronically ill and almost 600 dead.
The Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific body, described the U.S.'s failure to confirm how much or where they used DU rounds as an "appalling situation.”
Jason Burke and Paul Harris in the Sunday Observer (London)similarly announced that the American casualties were 6,000, noting that “the figures will shock many Americans, who believe that casualties in the war in Iraq have been relatively light.” They added, “It is believed many of the American casualties evacuated from Iraq are seriously injured. Modern body armour, worn by almost all American troops, means wounds that would normally kill a man are avoided. However, vulnerable arms and legs are affected badly. This has boosted the proportion of maimed among the injured.”
WMD Update:
I wrote twice over the past month of the anticipated Kay Report that was to either claim that they had found evidence of an Iraqi wmd program, or hope that people would draw conclusions from a mound of paperwork that didn’t actually conclude that there was an active wmd program, let alone an “imminent threat” to the U.S. and allies.
Now, the mid-September release has been cancelled. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that its evidence was lacking. Then the Sunday Times of London reported that "Britain and America have decided to delay indefinitely the publication of a full report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction after inspectors found no evidence that any such weapons exist." Sify.com (India) re-produced the Times report, but it hasn’t been a subject in our press, as of yet.
Exit Strategy? The most conservative Weekly Standard (Reuel Marc Gerecht, 9/22) posits that there is an exit strategy: Though far from fine-tuned, the Bush administration has finally developed an exit strategy for Iraq. The strategy has two prongs. Through the State Department, the administration will seek to "internationalize" the forces of occupation by obtaining a new U.N. Security Council resolution that would "authorize" Turks, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Moroccans, Indians, and even the French to send their troops. Concurrently through the Defense Department, it will strive to create larger all-Iraqi police and military forces that can work together with--and ideally replace--American soldiers who battle former Baathists, militant Sunni fundamentalists, and foreign jihadists. The approaches are complementary and separable: No matter what happens in the Security Council, the Pentagon will increasingly hand off internal security to the natives, sooner rather than later.
Venezuela: Not yet!
The “recall” effort to oust President Hugo Chavez failed, as election authorities threw out an opposition petition for a referendum on ending his rule.
The National Elections Council ruled Friday that opponents violated Venezuela's Constitution by conducting the petition drive before the midpoint of Chavez's six-year term Aug. 19. Organizers collected more than 3 million signatures.
So, as was true in regards to Chile and Allende in 1970, Washington will work on other schemes to displace Chavez.
Perspective, via Jeffrey Sachs (Earth Institute, Columbia U.):
He’s been on NPR and in Saturday’s Globe. He calls for us to leave Iraq in multi-national hands. For those in missed- [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/13/a_better_use_for_our_87b?mode=PF]
This year Bush asked for only $200 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, a sum equal to 1.5 days of spending on the US occupying forces in Iraq. The US annual contributions to fight malaria are less than the costs of one day’s occupation, and as a result, 3 million Africans will die needlessly from that preventable and treatable disease. But who is talking about $87 billion for the 30 million Africans dying from the effects of HIV/AIDS, or the children dying of malaria, or the 15 million AIDS orphans, or the dispossessed of Liberia and Sierra Leone, or the impoverished children of America without medical insurance?
-R
