Friday, May 29, 2009

Castro Speaks on Torture--USA's Cowardly and Shameful Acts

Castro califica las torturas de EEUU como 'actos cobardes y vergonzosos'
Una partidaria de Fidel Castro. | Reuters

Fidel Castro critica a Cheney por justificar torturas
Dpa | La Habana
Actualizado jueves 28/05/2009 03:12 horasDisminuye el tamaño del texto Aumenta el tamaño del texto
El ex presidente cubano Fidel Castro criticó como un "acto cobarde y vergonzoso" el empleo de la tortura por parte de las autoridades de seguridad estadounidenses en interrogatorios contra sospechosos de terrorismo, y aseguró que Cuba jamás ha recurrido a métodos similares.

"Por dolorosas que fuesen las acciones contra el pueblo de Estados Unidos el 11 de septiembre de 2001, que todo el mundo condenó con energía, la tortura es un acto cobarde y vergonzoso que no puede ser jamás justificado", afirmó Castro, de 82 años, en una nueva 'Reflexión' publicada en medios de comunicación cubanos.

"En nuestro país, a pesar de los gravísimos peligros que durante decenas de años nos han amenazado, jamás se torturó a nadie para obtener información", señaló.

A cuentas del discurso de Cheney
En su artículo, el líder cubano cita ampliamente el discurso pronunciado el jueves de la semana pasada por el ex vicepresidente estadounidense Dick Cheney, minutos después de que el actual mandatario, Barack Obama, insistiera en cerrar la cárcel de la base naval de Guantánamo, erigida sobre suelo cubano.

En el discurso, el que fuera vicepresidente durante la administración de George W. Bush, defiende las acciones de seguridad emprendidas por el anterior gobierno en respuesta a los atentados del 11-S, como las invasiones de Afganistán e Irak, y el empleo de métodos de tortura para conseguir información.

Castro consideró que "independientemente de los miles de jóvenes norteamericanos muertos, mutilados y heridos en la guerra de Irak y los fabulosos fondos invertidos allí, cientos de miles de vidas de niños, jóvenes y ancianos, hombres y mujeres que no tuvieron culpa alguna del ataque a las torres gemelas han muerto en ese país después de la invasión ordenada por Bush".

Sospechas sobre el 11-S
Además, el ex jefe de Estado afirmó que Cheney no explicó por qué los atentados del 11 de septiembre pudieron organizarse "de forma relativamente fácil, qué noticias previas de la inteligencia poseía Bush, qué pudo hacerse para evitarlos. Bush llevaba ya casi ocho meses en la Presidencia. Se sabía que trabajaba poco y descansaba mucho. Constantemente se marchaba para su rancho de Texas".

Castro cita pasajes en los que Cheney relata cómo vivió el 11-S desde un búnker de mando, y considera al respecto: "La narración de Cheney evidencia que nadie había previsto aquella situación y le presta un flaco servicio al orgullo de los norteamericanos al suponer que alguien encerrado en una cueva, a 15 ó 20 mil kilómetros de distancia, podía obligar al presidente de Estados Unidos a ocupar su puesto de mando en el sótano de la Casa Blanca".

En su 'Reflexión', el primer secretario del gobernante Partido Comunista de Cuba afirma que Estados Unidos posee entre 5.000 y 10.000 cabezas nucleares, además de armas químicas, biológicas, electromagnéticas, y considera que "esas armas están en manos de quienes reclaman el derecho a utilizar la tortura".

Castro acusa además a Estados Unidos de haber recurrido al terrorismo contra Cuba, ya desde el mandato de Dwight Eisenhower. "No se trató de un grupo de acciones sangrientas contra nuestro pueblo, sino de decenas de hechos desde el propio año de 1959, que se incrementaron después a cientos de actos terroristas cada año".

"Miles de personas fueron afectadas, y la economía, cuyo objetivo es sostener la alimentación, la salud y los servicios más elementales del pueblo ha sido sometida a un implacable bloqueo que se aplica extraterritorialmente", añadió, en relación al embargo impuesto por Estados Unidos a la isla desde los años 60.

From elmund0.es May 29, 2009

Saturday, May 9, 2009

MORE ON THE DEMISE OF THE CELTIC TIGER

All about Ireland's boom times: Read it all at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/10/ireland-financial-crisis-emigration

Here are some interesting snippets:

There are plenty of astonishing figures in this boom. There were 6,507 racehorses in training in Ireland in 1992, yet by 2008 some 12,119 thoroughbreds were kicking up the gallops. From four private aircraft, the numbers of helicopters and jets rose to an estimated 80, with more being bought in Ireland than in any other EU country. Where once there were only a few thousand people who could afford to follow Munster's rugby players abroad, an estimated 65,000 arrived in Cardiff in 2006 to watch them become European champions.

And now? Well, in the 2006 census there were 200,000 empty homes, a figure that will now have significantly worsened. Horses are being offered to trainers by hard-up owners, or being left by the side of the road, or even shot. "All those planes and helicopters are for sale," I am told by one businessman.

Still, for many, the good times had been grand. In the late 1980s, economists close to Fianna Fáil, the broadly centrist political party that has clung to power like few others in Europe, had slashed taxes, regulations and corporate rates in order to make Ireland third only to Hong Kong and Singapore as the world's most free-market country. The move, satirised by journalists as the "Doheny & Nesbitt School of Economics", after the pub they claim had given birth to it, would see 40 per cent of all American money invested in Europe wash up on Ireland's shores.

Ireland had two booms, explains Fintan O'Toole, commentator, critic and historian. The first came in the 1990s. Foreign investment offered work and opportunities to the well-educated, English-speaking workforce. The whole country rose on the tide, and many of those who emigrated in the 1980s came home. As the millennium turned, however, a parasite embedded itself in the economy. Recessionary interest rates set by the European Central Bank allowed Irish bank executives to borrow huge sums, which they lent to their chums in the property business (and sometimes to themselves). When Anglo Irish Bank, the worst offender, called in the government in December 2008, it had lent 15 people more than €500m each.

This money fuelled an explosive burst of confidence. A series of spectacular new buildings appeared downstream from those starving figures on the banks of the Liffey. The "Builders", as the big property developers are called, sold land to each other at spiralling prices. These men - they were all men - whose fathers might have ended up working on English construction sites, were commissioning skyscrapers not just in Ireland, but in New York, Chicago and London, arrowing around the globe on Falcon jets. They set an example that every Irishman who had ever put mortar to brick followed.

The Builders became glamour figures. In 1999, one of the most notorious bought a plot, perhaps a quarter of an acre, in Shrewsbury Road for Ir£3m, and then promptly sued the neighbour who had sold it to him in a boundary dispute. As he built his house, Sean Dunne, 54, compact, likeable, with neatly groomed grey hair and small, terrifying blue eyes, must have sensed he was where he wanted to be, a long way from his childhood in County Carlow, in southeast Ireland, where, as he once put it, "If me or my siblings needed a bath we went for a swim in the River Slaney."

Much of the country was going crazy. The German ambassador caused a diplomatic incident when he complained that Irish life had become coarse. The church, so long a moral force, was silent, muzzled by a succession of scandals involving paedophilia and the abuse of children in care.

According to O'Toole, "People bought into the idea that this wasn't just an economic boom - it was a national vindication, a healing, the sense that our bad past was gone, and gone for ever." But he warns against confusing a sense of humiliation with an understanding of the past: "One of the most ridiculous clichés about the Irish is that we are obsessed with history. In recent decades it's been the opposite; we have been living in a continual present, in the sense that now is the only place that ever existed."

So who is to blame for all this? The Builders? Well, only a fool would have mistaken them for angels. The banks? Certainly, Sean FitzPatrick, Anglo Irish's ex-chairman, makes Sir Fred Goodwin look prudent. But as O'Toole argues, such conjecture is to let the guilty go free: "To place all the blame with the banks is a cop-out. This was crony capitalism, a political problem. We've had two prime ministers in the past 20 years who were on the take - Ahern and Haughey. Which is a lot, considering we've only had five."

................. Beyond such glamour, the collapse of the property bubble has seen unemployment rise past 11 per cent, banks nationalised, the economy forecast to shrink by 8.3 per cent, negative equity engulf great swathes of the population, the nation's international credit rating downgraded, economists warn of national bankruptcy, and taxes rising by €4,000 for the average family. As Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, recently wrote, "As far as responding to the recession goes, Ireland appears to be really, truly without options."

I take a train out of Dublin to Adamstown, and step out into a weird semi-wilderness. The station is like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, manned by a lone ticket collector almost mad with boredom. Outside, a single building stands in a churned-up field, the centrepiece of a new town once heralded as the model of Irish development. I follow the deserted road east, beside a plyboard fence announcing a yet to be built swimming pool - "Come in, the water's great" - until I come to two primary schools and a few apartments. It is playtime and all the children are clearly from elsewhere. Which, I confess, comes as a shock.

Mena Baskarasubramanian is from the south of India. Until three years ago, she was living in England, but her husband's job in the IT department of a bank ("I know," she cries. "I know,") had been reassigned to Dublin. "When we arrived I heard about Adamstown and so I came to look for a house," she tells me. "It was 2006 and you wouldn't believe it, people were queueing all night." She secured a two-bed apartment for her family for €300,000.

Now chairwoman of the local primary school, Mena explains that 95 per cent of the students are from non-Irish backgrounds, with 26 nationalities. With an open face and wonderful optimism, she talks of the connections she is making, the beginnings of a very Irish network of Croats and Kazaks, Brazilians and Somalis, and Indians, and, more importantly, her fears for it. "Because of the recession, people are going back to their countries. The Polish workers are going. Doctors are moving to the Middle East. I don't want to lose this beautiful structure we have at the moment."
The value of Mena's flat has fallen by €50,000, and many of the cranes over Adamstown are no longer moving. "Some of the units have been stopped. The retail spaces were supposed to be open last year." I ask if her small boy will take up hurling. "Probably. My daughter is becoming Irish, she loves Irish dancing. The other day, two children arrived not speaking a word of English, but after four days they were singing Irish songs, thanks to our four language-support teachers." Again, the enthusiasm falters. "Due to the cutbacks it's been reduced to two. We don't know what we'll do next year."

The Celtic tiger is dying, and nobody knows what will be left. Mena's fears - about jobs, about negative equity, about the community drifting away - are every woman's fears in Ireland. Some people tell me that this time it won't be like the 1980s, that with the whole world in recession there is nowhere for the young to go.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

STORIES WE DO NOT READ IN THE US PRESS

FRENCH ROQUEFORT CHEESE AND AMERICAN BEEF

Gripped by an economic-crisis-induced fit of purchasing madness, I recently bought a nice square of that elegant blue French cheese--Roquefort..the lovely creamy, piquant cheese which is made of ewe's (sheep) milk and which is aged in cool limestone caves in southern France where it has been made since ancient times. Even the ancients knew and enjoyed this famous product of Gaul. The Roman historian and natural scientist Pliny the Elder (who died in the August 25, 79AD eruption of Vesuvius) wrote glowingly about the cheese in his "Natural History". It was very expensive!. A little triangle was over ten dollars! The price in the local market was much more than one would pay in France itself. Perhaps three times more....Why?

The answer: Our so wise, US government has had a 100% entry tax on this fine product since 1999. They were planning to raise the tax to 300%. That would make it simple out of reach for all except the Wall Street hedge fund managers to buy. Simply a way to punish the rest of us and the French? Yes indeed!

But the part of the story which disturbs me is why we have imposed this big import tax.

Since 1980 the EU block has put an embargo on American beef --our beef laden with hormones-- since the EU considers that American beef treated with hormones was detrimental to the health of the consumer it has prevented this beef from entering its markets. The US imposed import tax on French Roquefort cheese, Italian mineral water, Belgian chocolates, EU meats, grains and other foods were simply a reaction and a threat (a tit for tat) for the EU action.

Today Le Monde reports that some deal has been struck. The Obama government will not jump the tax to 300%---in return, the French and the rest of the EU will import American beef of the non-hormone-treated variety to the tune of 20,000 tons during the first three years and raising to 45,000 tons on the fourth year.

That's great for the EU farmer and consumer. Their beef should be cheaper and their farm products will have an expanded market---but what about the US consumer? Our government is too much under the influence of the beef lobby to label meat accordingly so we continue to have to eat growth-hormone treated beef. And perhaps now that the EU's markets are opened to the non-hormone treated variety, that scarce product on American shelves will be now even more difficult to find and more expensive.

We should all demand that our government label our meats, and demand hormone-free beef and other products from our producers.

To read the whole Le Monde piece see:http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2009/05/06/b-uf-contre-roquefort-l-ue-et-les-etats-unis-passent-l-eponge_1189829_3214.html

On a related topic, a recent study, spanning the past decade, evaluated the food preference of more than one-half million 50-71 year-olds and the effects of their preferences on their mortality. It found that men and women eating the most meat were one-third more likely to die of a variety of causes over those who ate the least red meat. To read the facts about hormone treated American beef and how it decreases your life span read :http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_82019.html

rjk speaks

Sunday, May 3, 2009

LE GRIPPE PORCINE- THE FRENCH VIEW

From Le Monde, Paris (May 2, 2009)

What news about “Le Grippe Porcine” in Paris"

http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2009/05/02/grippe-le-mexique-se-veut-rassurant-l-oms-dans-le-flou_1188223_3244.html#ens_id=1185166

The French paper Le Monde reports that “More than a week after the appearance in Mexico of the swine flu, the risks of a world pandemic and the gravity of the disease remain blurry (“flou demeure”)."
"The virus (A H1N1) has caused twenty deaths –nineteen in Mexico and one in the USA—and it has been reported from nineteen countries.” This international journal of record adds however, an interesting new twist on the way the germ may be transmitted.
In Canada
On Saturday, in Ottawa, (Canada) officials have announced that for the first time in the epidemic, the swine flu virus--H1V1—the human swine flu--has gone the other way--by infecting previously healthy porkers in a Canadian facility---while the source of the infection was probably an agricultural worker who arrived from Mexico. The officials add that both the man and all the hogs have been or are in the process of being cured. After analysis the experts confirmed that the pigs caught the human virus, adding that the sanitary and health authorities have stated that “the risque that these hogs can transmit the virus (back) to people is very slight."

"This announcement could have overall repercussion on the commerce of about fifteen countries," states the Le Monde article, "of which China and Russia, have large hog markets, and have interdicted or restrained the importation of pork and pork products derived from Canada, the US and Mexico. These three countries have appealed Saturday in a common declaration “ to avoid adding to the fear of the porcine flu by uselessly limiting commerce”.
In Egypt.
"According to World Health Organization (WHO), Egypt has begun to cull about 250,000 pigs raised on its territory, while that organization reports there is no evidence of any one person contaminated by swine flu in that country. While at the UN, in this regard, the FAO (the organisation united for food and agriculture stated in a communique that pork meats are not a source of infection when they are prepared according to the standard rules of hygiene.”

In Mexico.
"Saturday, the Mexican authorities have determined that the virus seems to be in a “phase of stabilization”, but they judge at the same time, it is premature to announce a decline of the epidemic. After examining more than 1300 analyses the Minister of Health, Jose Angel Cordova has announced that each day we observe a diminution of the occurrence of grave cases, and mortality has diminished. In another sign of hope, the last confirmed deaths were announced on the 28th of April.
The balance sheet on the swine flu in Mexico, considered the source (“le foyer”) of the A H1N1 flu, is reported as 454 confirmed cases, or 57 more than in most-recent accounts, but only three new deaths have been tabulated. The (government) activities continue the process of “continuing the a slow down” having maintained as of Wednesday, the closing of restaurants, bars, cinemas, and tourist sites.
"In addition, some of these actions for health and sanitation have been (also) initiated in the subway (metro) where at present only a single main line remains in operation to avoid transportation chaos."

In spite of the declarations coming from Mexico, the WHO has indicated Saturday, that not knowing “when the pandemic is serious or benign--- we can not critique the Mexican government which must face a very complicated situation and which has been exceptionally cooperative when we have demanded information. This statement was made by Dr Michael Ryan, director of WHO research on world-alert-and-actions-in-the-case-of-an-epidemic". According to those in charge, the evolution of the situation “in the coming days in Europe will permit us to determine at which point the mutant virus is propagated, and if necessary the conditions for raising the pandemic alert to the maximum of level 6. The WHO had declared Wednesday the level to phase 5 or an “imminent” pandemic alert.
In France.
In France, 22 cases of possible flu are already under evaluation, while, two cases have been confirmed Friday night. Seven persons who have returned from Mexico and constitute “probable” cases have been hospitalized in the Paris region, and in Aquitane. And as well, the inter-ministerial group (Paris) has decided to advise against school trips to destinations in Mexico, New York, or those trips planned to pass through New York.

In the US.
"On their side, the US has counted 160 confirmed cases (against 143 previously reported) in 21 states, but for the most part these are not serious cases. One death was reported in Texas. Faced with the unknown swine flu, President Barak Obama has explained that he would prefer to take too much precautions too early rather than not enough. The American health authorities do not exclude the possibility that the initial source of the virus (A H1N1) was found in the USA."

In China
In China, about fifty Mexican have been placed in isolation, the authorities having ordered these measures of quarantine after having identified on their soil the discovery of the Mexican disease—this reported on Sunday according to a diplomatic Mexican source in China. Mexico has reproached Peking, who previously suspended flights with Mexico, “of having isolated in an unjustified manner, Mexicans who have presented no symptoms.” In reprisal, Mexico has recommended to its traveling nationals to” avoid travel to China.”

Saturday, May 2, 2009

WORLD RECESSION--THE VIEW FROM PARIS

From: Le Monde.



Recession--the Financial Cirsis.



http://www.lemonde.fr/la-crise-financiere/article/2009/04/23/recession_1184430_1101386.html#ens_id=1172969.

What do we hear in these last months? The birds of bad news, the media, have pressed the characteristics, nourished the uncertainty, fed the collective psychosis, and for a few, invented a world crisis which (of course) butters their bread. In brief, the press is so much used to hearing reproach of its interest in catastrophism that one is almost relieved by the (actual) news from the economic front.

God knows if they are wrong. In London, the government of Gordon Brown has presented this Wednesday, 22 of April, a “war budget": a massive injection of public money to sustain the economy. It is an historic public deficit in peace time (12.4 % of the PIB , to be doubled in one year), an explosion of British debt in three years to come and put vigorous fiscal pressure to re-enforce the high revenue. This a “return of class warfare” blared the Daily Telegraph. To say the least, it is the end of the love affair over the last fifteen years between the workers and the City. To the point where it raises the specter of an intervention of international monetary funds (FMI) plan for London as in 1976.

In Washington, the news of the previsions (specter) of the FMI had the effect of a cold shower. Again in January the Fund banked on a light progress of 0.5% world growth. The prediction however for 2009 showed (rather) a decline of 1.3%. (Though) the Chinese growth was +6.5% and India’s at +4.5% but these did not compensate for the decline in the other countries, and particularly compared to the USA at -2.8%. The perspectives are particularly somber in Europe with a decline in growth of 4.2% in the Euro-zone, and nearly -5.6% in Germany.

In Paris, finally, the economic minister, Christine Legarde sees “positive signals” in the automobile and real estate industries, while the Budget Minister Eirc Woerth, estimates that “the slope of the graph has started to level off”, while the Prime Minister Francois Fillon, seems closer to reality when he predicted a “strong recession” this year: and a fall of FMI growth of 3%, and unemployment which may pass the bar of 10% of the active population.

Without doubt this black scenario goes (well) to re-launch the debate on the economic choices of the government in the days ahead of the mobilization of May Day. The relative orthodox budget to which it is not taken to be contested, as in the majority, by all those who press for the adoption , by income tax and public dispensing, these measure re-launch more vigorously. And thus we are.