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Al Jazeera- Dam it: Brazil's Belo Monte stirs controversy

2012-02-15T13:24:00.002Z

Altamira, Brazil - Drive about 90 minutes outside this sultry Brazilian Amazon town, and into the thicket of the jungle, and a surreal, other-worldly scene appears.

It's a place where dozens of steel arms with giant claws from land excavators cut into the red earth, carving out deep holes.

There are earth movers, growling bulldozers and dump trucks crossing switch back roads that lead into colossal man-made craters, while clusters of hard hat-wearing engineers, glare down inspecting it all.

This is the scene at the opening phase of the building of the largest and most expensive project in Brazil, and one of the most controversial projects in Latin America: The Belo Monte Dam, along the Xingu River.

Officially the ground breaking quietly happened in June of last year, but the heavy construction ramped up during the turn of the year, and is moving full speed ahead at a blistering pace.

Five thousand men are working in two shifts, from 7 am until 5 pm and from 5 pm until 2:30 am, six days a week.

The construction area is gigantic, comprising three separate work sites sites that will eventually merge together to form two reservoirs 500 square kilometres in size linked by a channel comprising the Belo Monte Dam complex.

Twice a day, dynamite is used to blow up hard rock under the earth to make way for the dam.

A 'small city' is being built inside the work area to accommodate some of the 20,000 labourers and engineers who will be working here by November 2013.

When completed, Belo Monte will be the world's third largest hydroelectric dam and the latest cost estimate is $14bn.

The construction scene is all the more remarkable given that until a few months ago, Belo Monte's future still seemed in doubt, as the project faced a wave of judicial injunctions, and opposition from indigenous groups and environmental organisations both in Brazil and abroad.

The judicial injunctions were primarily imposed by the federal prosecutors office in the state of Para where Belo Monte is located and they questioned the builders processes of environmental licensing, contracting bids and the rights of effected indigenous populations.

Renewable energy worth social cost?

Those regional injunctions were either thrown out by higher courts or appealed, which has allowed builders to proceed forward and project and air of confidence.

"In this moment Belo Monte has the perspective to fulfill absolutely all its timetables," Joao Pimentel, the director of institutional relations for Norte Energia, told Al Jazeera. "We haven't had any delays by any judicial action or for any other reason, and we never had any lost days of work. That's why Belo Monte is going to continue within the timeframe."

While Belo Monte is being built by Norte Energia - a consortium of more than 10 mining, engineering and construction companies - the project is heavily backed by the federal government and Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, who have long said the dam is an essential component of Brazil's energy security.

Pimentel argues Belo Monte represents clean, renewable energy, and he points to the fact 86 per cent of Brazil's energy generation is from renewables, far higher than the world average.

"Brazil needs Belo Monte," Pimentel said.

Most environmentalists disagree, arguing that the ecological and social impacts of Belo Monte far outweigh any benefits.

"Belo Monte's social and environmental impacts are far greater than the Norte Energia propagandists would lead us to believe," Christian Poirier, Brazil programme coordinator for Amazon Watch told Al Jazeera. "They are in fact an unacceptable price to pay for a hugely inefficient mega-project carved into an extremely sensitive and precarious region."

Poirier says the Brazilian government has put too much emphasis on hydroelectric dams and not on wind and solar energy, which are generally considered to have less social and environmental impacts.

There is also the issue of displacement. According to Pimentel, about 6,000 families, or roughly 24,000 people, are being paid-off to leave their homes to make way for the dam.

Elio Alves da Silva, 56, a fishermen in the community of Santo Antonio - which sits at the base of one the main work sites - is being pushed off the land where he has lived for more than 30 years.

Only 60 families live in the community, but more than half have taken the payout and moved.

Their homes are then quickly demolished by Norte Energia, and no trespassing signs put up. The church will be destroyed, and the tiny cemetery with about 20 gravesites has also been closed.

Payouts not enough

"Our community was one of the most talked about in the area," Alves da Silva told Al Jazeera. "Belo Monte is finishing our community. We had no option. For me, the saddest part of this story is to know that everything I helped create here I'm now seeing it all be destroyed. For me, this is the most difficult part."

There are a handful of people who don't want to leave, but last month the Brazilian government declared the entire Belo Monte construction area as well as surrounding 'areas of impact' part of the 'public interest,' meaning that residents have little legal recourse.

Mr Alves da Silva was offered about $11,000 for his home, but when he rejected that amount, Norte Energia offered a few hundred more dollars that he accepted, fearing there was no other option.

The money, he says, isn't enough to buy a proper piece of land, so he's moving 70km away to the only area he can afford, but will loose his livelihood of fishing.

"I consider myself as one of those who has been defeated," Alves da Silva said.

When thinking about his home being bulldozed, tears started to roll down his cheeks.

"It's difficult, very difficult," he said.

Pimentel argues that Belo Monte's social impacts will be marginal.

"The design of Belo Monte was changed in the last year precisely to reduce the social impacts," Pimentel said. "The population that has been or will be removed during the process of the building of Belo Monte will only be in those areas that are necessary for the reservoir. And that is a small population... Yes, there are social impacts of a big project like Belo Monte, but we are mitigating those."

Questions such as how much land will be flooded and how many indigenous people will be effected have been batted around for years; debates about effects of building a dam of such magnitude on the Xingu River date back to the late 1970s during the time of Brazil's military dictatorship.

But today Belo Monte is fast becoming a reality, not just a concept to discuss.

Unanticipated social consequences

Just this week the Arara indigenous community claimed that land runoff from the construction was dirtying the Xingu river water they use to fish and drink. The public prosecutor's office has asked environmental authorities to urgently look into the matter.

And the city of Altamira has suffered a transformation as thousands of migrants merge on the city for jobs on the dam. The prices at the few hotels in town have more than doubled, and there has been skyrocketing land prices and home rentals. New business are opening to meet demand of well-funded engineers migrating to the city from other parts of Brazil.

And there is also crime.

ISTOE, a respected national news magazine, recently reported that criminality in Altamira has skyrocketed - the number of weapons confiscated jumped 379 per cent from 2010 to 2011 - as thousands of migrants flooded the city looking for work on the dam project.

"The trafficking of drugs and the bank robberies have intensified in the Xingu region because of a higher number of people and the movement of resources generated by the work of the large construction project," Paulo Kisner, the local Federal Police boss in Altamira, told the magazine. "Investments in the cities of the Xingu area are not being made, and the consequence is the increase in cost of living for a majority of population that is poor."

Belo Monte officials strongly deny crimes rates in Altamira are related to the construction project.

A new study released by a respected Brazilian environmental research organisation claims that deforestation will spike in the coming years in the region around the dam with an estimated 800 square kilometres destroyed in a "best case scenario", or as much as 5,316 square kilometres in a "worst case scenario" depending on migrations patterns.

Perhaps shocked by the speed of construction, Xingu Vivo Para Sempre, the main local NGO fighting against the dam, stormed a part of the construction site in January and spray painted work vehicles with anti-dam slogans, temporarily halting work for about one hour.

'Battle for public opinion'

Last year, more than one million Brazilians signed a petition against the dam in less than a week and in 2010 American filmmaker James Cameron came to Brazil to take up the cause of fighting against the dam.

Meanwhile, Norte Energia is pushing ahead both on construction and the battle for public opinion.

The first turbine is expected to be operational by 2015, and the entire project complete by early 2019.

They say all plans are on schedule.

The company has started a television station in Altamira, TV Belo Monte, and also hired Luiz Carlos Barreto, a famous Brazilian cinema filmmaker, to produce promotional videos extolling the benefits of the dam.

But decades after this project first was considered, and with cement being laid and earth movers carving new paths for construction, some opponents of the dam say there is still a long battle ahead.

"The government and builders of Belo Monte appear to think that rushing this disaster's completion will make it a fait accompli," said Poirier, from Amazon Watch. "But I'm afraid what they are doing is provoking further conflict with affected people and the potential for a prolonged standoff."

For his part, Pimentel is convinced the benefits outweight the costs. If there is no dam, he said, "there will be a need for nuclear or coal power and that is worse".

Estimated Cost: $14bn USD

Workers: 5,000 now, 20,000 by November 2013

Schedule: First turbine to start generating electricity in February 2015, final completion of project by
January 2019.

Size: Will be the world's third largest dam, behind China's Three Gorges and Brazil-Paraguay Itaipu. It's
currently the largest construction project in Brazil, and one of the largest in all of Latin America.

Who: Norte Energia, a consortium of over 10 of the largest construction, engineering, and mining firms in the world, mostly Brazilian. Norte Energia is a private ('special use') company set up especially for the Belo Monte Dam.

Location: Belo Monte is located on the Amazon's Xingu River. The nearest town is the city of Altamira (pop 98,750), roughly 50 kilometres from the construction site. It's in the Brazilian state of Para (pop 7.6 million). There are 11 cities in the area of influence of Belo Monte.

About the Xingu River: The Xingu River flows from the tropical savanna of central Mato Grosso state,
Brazil northward to the Amazon for 1,979 km (1,230 miles). According to NGO International Rivers, some 25,000 indigenous people from 18 distinct ethnic groups live along the Xingu. Norte Energia says only 2,200 indigenous people are in the Belo Monte area of influence.

History of Belo Monte project: The idea of building a dam on the Xingu River was first proposed in the 1970s, during the time of the military dictatorship in Brazil. The idea was for several Dams on the Xingu, but it never went forward and the plans were just put on hold.

In 1989, an international mobilisation (called the Encontro do Xingu) led by the Kayapo Indians stopped state-owned electric company Eletronorte's plans to construct a six-dam complex on the Xingu.
During the 1990s there was more of a focus put on energy and plans for Belo Monte were again renewed. Former President Lula da Silva agreed to the Belo Monte Dam project.

With the project coming closer to reality, yet still working it's way through the legal and environmental and government bodies, in May of 2008 there was a second Encontro do Xingu gathering and it was the largest indigenous gathering ever in the Brazilian Amazon.

Thousands of indigenous people protested against Belo Monte. But at the same time there were a series of high profile energy blackouts in major Brazilian cities, that talk of needing more energy was again renewed.

In April 2010 the Consortium Norte Energia was formed, made up of 11 companies, and won the rights to build the dam. Ibama, the environmental regulatory agency, signed off on the project. July 23, 2011 construction officially began, but ramped up in January 2012.

Al-Jazeera: Fresh doubts over Greek bailout plan

2012-02-15T13:09:00.002Z

European finance ministers have cancelled a meeting to discuss Greece's second bailout, creating further uncertainty over Greece's commitment to austerity reforms demanded by its creditors.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who heads the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, said Wednesday's meeting had been replaced by a conference call because Greece had failed to meet all the conditions needed in order to receive its next rescue loan.

Juncker said the group had not yet received assurances from Greek political leaders over their commitment to cuts, despite the measures being passed by the country's parliament. He said Greece had also still to detail how it planned to cover a budget gap of $428m.

Jan Kees de Jager, the Dutch finance minister, said: "We should have everything clear on paper. We don't give an inch. We want everything, a complete package."

Greece needs access to the 130bn-euro loan ($170bn) in order to avoid defaulting on its debts next month, when it is due to pay out 14.5bn euros ($19bn) in redeemed government bonds.

Antonio Samaras, Greece's conservative leader, who is expected to be the country's next prime minister after elections in April, plans to send a letter of commitment to the terms of EU/IMF bailout within the day, a spokesman told Reuters.

But Greek political leaders have continued to rail against the stern measures demanded in return for the bailout.

Christos Papoutisis, the country's public order minister, said: "Greece has made all the efforts that it needed to do, and the people cannot take any more. The government is making superhuman efforts and we have reached the limits of the social and economic system."

Lack of trust

Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Philips, reporting from Athens, said: "There is no doubt that the EU is holding the Greek feet to the fire, if you like."

"It's a lack of trust from the European leaders, perhaps particularly Germany and Netherlands," he said.

"The record of the past two years, unfortunately, has suggested that Greek leaders cannot always deliver. On this side there will be exasperation, despair - a feeling that enormous sacrifices have been made and now European partners need to show solidarity and need to help Greek people."

Al Jazeera's John Psaropoulos, also reporting from the Greek capital, said the cancellation of Wednesday's meeting was the latest in a line of procedural hiccups.

He said Greek officials had gone to Brussels "unprepared" with respect to precisely where the 325m euro [$428m] that was still outstanding from a proposed 3.9bn euros in cuts would come from.

"What I am hearing from the Greek government is that about [$132m] of that sum remains to be clarified."

Our correspondent said $262m would be culled from military expenditure and local government spending, with several hundred jobs in local government set to be eliminated by June 2012.

Election date set

Greece's parliament voted in favour of the latest austerity measures on Sunday, but the debate brought the government to the brink of collapse, with the far-right LAOS party quitting the ruling coalition and both of the country's main parties suffering resignations and rebellion within their ranks.

Lucas Papademos, Greece's unelected prime minister appointed in November to steer the country through its debt crisis, says that the consequences of a Greek default, including probable exclusion from the eurozone, would be worse than the effects of the austerity measures, pitching the country into social and economic chaos.

The country also announced parliamentary elections for April, prompting European officials to seek assurances that any agreement over the austerity measures would be honoured by the next government.

The country has also been rocked by days of strikes, protests and street clashes amid anger over the extent of the cuts.

At least 45 buildings were burned during riots on Sunday, including one of Athens' oldest cinemas. Dozens of stores and cafes were also smashed and looted.

Authorities said 106 police needed medical care after being injured by petrol bombs, stones and other objects hurled at them. At least 70 protesters were also admitted to hospital.

Police arrested at least 74 people and detained a further 92.

Greece has already endured several rounds of austerity cuts amid efforts to put its economy in order, prompting a fall in GDP of seven per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to figures released on Tuesday.

Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

Bloomberg: EU Is `Pretending' Greek Package Will Work

2012-02-15T12:49:00.000Z

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Yanis Varoufakis, a professor at the University of Athens, and Miranda Xafa, president of EF Consulting, talk about the outlook for Greece after lawmakers approved the austerity package demanded to secure a financial lifeline. They speak with Owen Thomas on Bloomberg Television's "Countdown." (Source: Bloomberg)

To watch the interview, click here

For more information on the current eurozone debt crisis, check out Zed Author Yanis Varoufakis' book, The Global Minotaur

Al Jazeera: Starving for freedom: The hunger strike of Khader Adnan

2012-02-14T17:02:00.000Z

Amman, Jordan - By the time you read these words, Khader Adnan could be dead. After 58 full days on hunger strike, his body is already well past the stage where his vital organs may cease to function at any moment. But Khader Adnan is dying to live.

The 33-year-old Palestinian baker, husband, father, and graduate student has refused food since December 18, a day after he was arrested in a nighttime raid on his family home by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank. He has lost over 40 kgs and his wife Randa and young daughters have described his appearance as "shocking".

Adnan, whom Israel says is a member of Islamic Jihad, was given a four month "administrative detention" order by the Israeli military - meaning that he is held without being charged for any crime or trial, a practice continued by Israel that dates back to British colonial days.

Yesterday an Israeli military court rejected Adnan's appeal against the arbitrary detention. Having vowed to maintain his hunger strike until he is released or charged, the judge - an Israeli military officer - might as well have sentenced Khader Adnan to death, unless there is urgent international intervention.

Though the life in his body hangs on by a thread, his spirit is unbroken.

"The Israeli occupation has gone to extremes against our people, especially prisoners," Adnan wrote in a letter published through his lawyer, "I have been humiliated, beaten, and harassed by interrogators for no reason, and thus I swore to God I would fight the policy of administrative detention to which I and hundreds of my fellow prisoners fell prey."

According to Amnesty International, which has issued two urgent appeals on Adnan's behalf, as of December 31 last year, 307 Palestinians were in Israeli administrative detention, including 21 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council that was elected in January 2006.

"I hereby assert that I am confronting the occupiers not for my own sake as an individual, but for the sake of thousands of prisoners who are being deprived of their simplest human rights while the world and international community look on," Adnan wrote in his letter.

In addition to Amnesty, Human Rights Watch too has heard Adnan's message, calling on Israel to release or charge him.

Adnan's insistence on his dignity and autonomy and his unwillingness to be broken by an overwhelmingly powerful oppressor contrasts starkly with the increasingly directionless and unprincipled actions of Palestinian leaders who continue to make dubious "reconciliation" deals that go nowhere, and pursue "negotiations" with Israel that have no chance of liberating Khader Adnan, his young daughters and millions of their countrywomen and men from Israel's occupation, colonisation and apartheid.

Adnan's fast has drawn support from people all over the world. Hundreds staged peaceful protests outside Israel's Ofer Prison - where they were met with violence and arrests by Israeli police - and other protests were held as far as Washington DC, New York and Chicago. Many others have fasted in solidarity with Adnan.

Khader Adnan's struggle reminds us that nonviolence is not the easy choice. It is often the harder one.

Yet the world is still failing to act. The Palestinian prisoner's group Addameer undoubtedly spoke for many when it declared that it "holds the international community responsible for not taking action to save Khader’s life". It demanded "that the European Union, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross intervene with Israel immediately before it is too late".

And there has been silence too from prominent voices such Nick Kristof, the New York TimesWaiting for Gandhi", Kristof scolded Palestinians for not adopting nonviolent tactics. columnist famous for using individual stories to draw attention to human rights abuses around the world. In a 2010 column titled "

Of course Kristof was ignoring or simply ignorant of the rich history and present of such popular resistance in Palestine ably documented by Mazin Qumsiyeh in his recent book, Popular Resistance in Palestine: a History of Hope and Empowerment- which includes hunger strikes. Last Autumn hundreds of Palestinian prisoners spent weeks on hunger strike against punitive Israreli prison conditions, and many are on hunger strike now in solidarity with Adnan.

But if Kristof and others claim to be "waiting for Gandhi" why haven't they spoken up for Adnan? After all it was Mahatma Gandhi himself who when repeatedly imprisoned by the British famously used hunger strikes to draw international attention to his people's cause.

In more recent memory are the Irish hunger strikes by IRA and Republican prisoners in Belfast's Maze Prison in 1980-81. Ten of the men - most famously Bobby Sands, just 27 years-old, who endured 66 days - fasted to death. During his strike Sands was even elected a member of the British Parliament - a fact murals on the walls of Belfast still commemorate by affixing the letters "MP" after his name.

The government of Margaret Thatcher refused to yield to the demands of the hunger strikers to be treated as political prisoners. Yet their sacrifice galvanised global support and greatly embarrassed the British, pressure that arguably contributed to eventual peace.

Last week Tommy McKearney, who spent 53 days on hunger strike in 1980, sent a video message of solidarity with Khader Adnan. McKearney, himself a former member of the IRA, lived to contribute to peace in his country, just as his comrades did with their deaths.

But Bobby Sands and his comrades need not have died had wiser, more humane policies prevailed at the time. And Khader Adnan need not die today or tomorrow. But it will take the world to speak out now to save him.

The determination, unflinching courage and self-sacrifice of Adnan's hunger strike has captured the imagination and support of people everywhere. He deserves our respect, but more importantly right now, he needs us to raise our voices.

For more information about the Palestine-Israeli Conflict, check out the The Palestine Nakba, available from Zed Books

Investor Home: The Evolving State of Economics and Steve Keen's Debunking Economics

2012-02-14T15:55:00.000Z

Book Review-

Gary Karz, CFA
Host of InvestorHome

In the wakeof the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), economistsworldwide have been reassessing their opinions and theories about how theeconomy works, what caused the crisis, andhow to fix it. In fact, many have blamed the professionof economics (and specific economists) for contributing to the crisis.

A chiefcritic of mainstream economics that has been drawing increasing attention inrecent years is Australian Professor Steve Keen. While there are (I believe)more than 50 prominent individuals that warned in advance of the crisis, thousands ofeconomists at Real-World Economics Reviewoverwhelmingly voted Keen the winner of the Revere Award (thecriteria being those that "first and most clearly anticipated and gavepublic warning of the Global Financial Collapse and whose work is most likelyto prevent another GFC in the future"). The result is particularlyimpressive given that Keen outpolled the other prominent nomineesincluding Nouriel Roubini (who placed second and is widely acknowledged by thepress for predicting the crisis), Robert Shiller, George Soros, as well asNobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.

Keen originallypublished the first edition of his book Debunking Economics in2001 and he expanded and updated the 2nd Edition, which wasreleased near the end of 2011. Keen argues that virtually every aspect ofconventional neo-classical economics' thinking is intellectually unsound andthat "neoclassical economics is not bad because it is mathematical per se,but because it is bad mathematics." Keen discusses many of the modernworld's most well-known economists and economic theories and critiques theprinciple concepts, theories, and methodologies of economics in the book. He isparticularly critical of many of the commonly used economics textbooks and Keenstates "the critiques in this book are not based on politics, but onlogic. No political position - left, right or middle - should be based onfoundations which can easily be shown to be illogical. Yet much of economictheory is illogical."

As the GFCevolved there were many that gravitated toward the work of the late economistHyman Minsky. Keen's PhD thesis was on modeling Minsky's financial instabilityhypothesis and Keen argues that some of those that have jumped on the Minskybandwagon misinterpret or display ignorance of Minsky's work. For instance,Keen writes that some prominent economists seem "incapable of conceivingthat aggregate debt can have a macroeconomic impact . . . While Krugman reachedsome policy conclusions with which I concur - such as arguing againstgovernment austerity programs during a debt-deflation crisis - his analysis isproof for the prosecution that even cutting edge' neoclassical economics, bycontinuing to ignore the role of aggregate debt in macroeconomic dynamics, ispart of the problem of the Great Recession, not part of the solution." I'msure there is more to the story, but I did see this Krugman blog post(11/29/2011) "looking at the long-term debt history of the UnitedStates" showing nonfinancial private-sector debt as percentage of GDP. Heconcluded "for now, I think the data are really interesting."

Oneinteresting detail Keen notes in the book is that Minsky himself identified1966 as the time at which America made the transition from a productive to aPonzi economy. I always try to look at (and link to) the various sides of anargument/theory and there are others that have not joined the Minsky bandwagon,one prominent one being Richard Roll. See the The Possible Misdiagnosis of aCrisis (March/April 2011) and his response to a comment referencingMinsky in the May/June 2011 issue of the Financial Analysts Journal.

While thenews regularly cites unemployment numbers (the definition of which was changedin 1994), Keen argues the correct comparison to the Great Depression is an"alternative measure for the US measure that includes long-termdiscouraged workers." (See Shadowstats). Keenpoints out that "one in six Americans are out of work today, versus a peakrate of one in four during the Great Depression. The current crisis, though itis called the Great Recession, is therefore really a depression too." Asample chapter that Keen has made available is Misunderstanding the GreatDepression and the Great Recession. In the book, Keen makes"the empirical case that a collapse in debt-financed demand was thecause of both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Bernanke'sneoclassical goggles rendered him incapable of comprehending the bestexplanations of the Great Depression and let him to ignore the one data setthat overwhelmingly explained the fall in aggregate demand and the collapse inemployment." See also Down and Out: Measuring Long-TermHardship in the Labor Market (January 2012) and Unemployment Is Down BecausePeople Have Given Up Looking for Work (24 January 2012) from TheCenter for Economic and Policy Research.

Keen writesfurther that "The Great Depression remains the greatest economic crisisthat capitalism has ever experienced, but on every debt metric, the forces thatcaused the Great Recession are bigger. Private debt rose 50% of the 1920s, from$106 Billion (yes, billion) in 1920 to $161 billion by 1930; it rose from $17trillion between 1999 and 2009 - a 140 percent increase. The debt-to-GDP ratiowas 175 percent when the Great Depression began; it is over 100 percent highertoday and hit 298 percent before it began to reverse in 2009." Diagramssupporting the book are also available from his web site here (46 pages), with graphic 96 accompanying thepreceding text. The book is over 429 pages without the diagrams. Incidentally, Krugman has also said we are in adepression (and still believes that to this day).

Keen'sprescription for fixing our debt problems has been finding more supportrecently. "There is a simple, but confrontational, way to stop thisprocess: a unilateral write-off of debt." See also Keen's response to my GFC Survey. While it would befascinating to see Keen debate some of the prominent economists he comments on,he doesn't expect many would change their minds, because "there is nopoint trying to debate fundamental beliefs with a zealot."

My first exposure to Keen's writing was when I found his FCIC Report critique Sound and fury, signifying nothingin which he commented that he "wasted a perfectly good day reading thereport." While it's generally difficult to make economics booksinteresting, I find Keen to be consistently interesting and quotable. Forinstance, Keen summarized that "Economics is not the emperor of the socialsciences, but the Humpty Dumpty." Frank Fabozzi andSergio Focardi comment in What Can We Really Know aboutEconomics? where they summarize "The science of economics is inan uncomfortable position, somewhere between the physical sciences and thehuman sciences . . . One can say: In physics, we have lots of informationcorrupted by a little noise; in economics, we have lots of noise corrupted by alittle information."

In economics and investing, noise is a major issue, causingmisdiagnosis, too much trading, and way too much overconfidence on the part of both economists andinvestors. After reading Debunking Economics, one thing I can say is I'm sureglad that I didn't major in economics.

Despite it's issues, economics clearly plays a role in the investmentbusiness, which is one of the reasons I link to many prominent economists' websites and blogs. As I noted above, I like to hear both sides of an argument, soit's somewhat intentional that I link to the blogs of Paul Krugman and GregMankiw next to each other on the InvestorHome home page,as well as to Robert Reich alongside Karl Rove (alphabetically organized). I'veadded Steve Keen's blog to those links, and I think hehas earned the right to be heard on major economic issues. As the debates abouthow to improve the world's economy continue, I think many will be well servedto consult the advice of Keen and others, rather than solely relying on thosewith similar opinions to their own and/or only those in traditional positionsof influence. Keen is seeking sponsors forhis continued efforts to develop "a realistic theory of economics, andpublic knowledge of both the flaws in neoclassical analysis and the existenceof alternatives."

Debunking Economics also has interesting discussions on many othertopics including monopolies and unions, as well as the efficient market hypothesis. The final chapter isone of the most interesting and in it Keen discusses alternative economicapproaches and their strengths, weaknesses, and track records. My collection ofother interesting quotes from Debunking Economics include the following (it wasdifficult to cull the list down to these).

· Rather than being a 'Black Swan', the GreatRecession was a 'White Swan' made invisible by neoclassical economists becausetheir theory makes them ignore the key factors that caused it: debt,disequilibrium, and time.

· An economic theory that ignores the role of moneyand debt in a market economy cannot possibly make sense of the complex,monetary credit-card based economy in which we live.

· Confronted by a competitive disconnect between whatthey believed and what was happening, economists reacted in a very human way:they panicked. Suddenly, they threw their neoclassical policy rules out thewindow, and began to behave like 'Keynesian' economists on steroids.

· Neoclassical efforts to get out of such a crisis -once they've gotten over the shock of one actually happening, and revert toform after behaving like 'born-again Keynesians' when the crisis begins -invariably argue that wages have to fall to end the crisis, because highemployment clearly indicates the wages are too high.

· To neoclassicals like Friedman and Bernanke, it wasbetter to blame one of the nurses for incompetence, than to admit thatcapitalism is a manic-depressive social system that periodically attempts totake it's own life.

· the key to preventing depressions is to prevent anexplosion in the ratio of private debt to GDP, so that debt-financed demandcannot reach a level from which its collapse will trigger a depression.

· As this book details, neoclassical economics isawash with examples of its internal contradictions being ignored by itsbelievers, so in one sense their practice of pretending that the MoneyMultiplier determines the amount of money in the economy is just anotherexample of neoclassical economists believing in something that does no exist.

· The global economy won't return to sustained growthuntil debt levels are substantially reduced. With debt at its current level,the general tendency of the private sector will be to delever, so that thechange in credit will deduct from economic growth rather than contributing toit. Any short-term boost to demand from the Credit Impulse - such as occurringin early 2011 - will ultimately dissipate, since if it were sustained thenultimately debt levels would have to rise again. Since the household sector inparticular is debt-saturated credit growth will hit a debt ceiling and give wayto deleveraging again. The US economy in particular is likely to be trapped ina never-ending sequence of 'double dips,' just as Japan has been for the lasttwo decades.

· Though deregulation of the financial sector was farfrom the sole cause of the financial crisis that began in 2007, removing thefetters from the financial sector resulted in a crisis that was more extremethan it would have been had the previous regulations been kept in place. TheUSA's 'shadow banking' sector could not have invented and sold so many 'weaponsof financial mass destruction' as it did - to use Warren Buffett's evocativephrase - had Glass-Steagall not been abolished during Bill Clinton's term, forexample.

For an entertaining diversion while debating economics, invest a fewminutes to watch 10 Principles of Economicsby Stand-Up Economist Yoram Bauman. Additionalexamples of changing perceptions of economics (called the dismal science by some) in the wake of theGFC include the following.

· 10/28/2008 - The Behavioral Revolutionby David Brooks in the NYT

My sense isthat this financial crisis isgoing to amount to a coming-out party for behavioral economists and others whoare bringing sophisticated psychology to the realmof public policy. At least these folks have plausible explanations for why somany people could have been so gigantically wrong about the risks they weretaking.

· February 2009 - The Financial Crisis and theSystemic Failure of Academic Economics by Thomas Lux, DavidColander, Michael Goldberg

We trace thedeeper roots of this failure to the profession’s insistence on constructingmodels that, by design, disregard the key elements driving outcomes inreal-world markets. The economics profession has failed in communicating thelimitations, weaknesses, and even dangers of its preferred models to thepublic.

· 4/16/2009 - What Good are Economists Anyway?by Peter Coy in Businessweek

"thisgroup say government needs to break downward spirals with the kinds ofaggressive policies the U.S. is following now—cutting interest rates andraising government spending. The group includes Paul R. Krugman, the PrincetonUniversity economist and Nobel laureate; NYU's Nouriel Roubini, who was earlyin predicting a severe recession; and Yale University's Robert J. Shiller, whopredicted the housing bust and the tech-stock bust. Other economists have moreconfidence that the economy is self-equilibrating. They believe low interestrates and heavy deficit spending will be ineffective while leaving the U.S.with a mountain of debt. Count Harvard's Robert Barro in this camp, along withChicago's Robert E. Lucas Jr., Arizona State University's Edward C. Prescott,and the University of Minnesota's Patrick J. Kehoe and V. V. Chari. Nosurprise, the equilibrium school mainly leans Republican, and theinterventionist school seems to be crawling with Democrats. On the right, JohnH. Cochrane of the University of Chicago dismisses those who advocate Keynesianstimulus, saying: "Professional economists, the guys I hang out with, arenot reverting to ancient Keynesianism any more than physicists are going back toAristotle when they can't understand how fast the universe is expanding."There are some middle-of-the-roaders, such as Columbia University's MichaelWoodford, who argue that macroeconomists are converging on a methodology forasking questions. But even Woodford agrees that "recent debates don'tparticularly make the field look unified."

· 5/13/2009 - Why Economists Failed to Predictthe Financial Crisis (Knowledge@Wharton)

· 7/18/2009 - What Went Wrong with Economics? in the Economist

OF ALL theeconomic bubbles that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly thanthe reputation of economics itself. . . In the wake of the biggest economiccalamity in 80 years that reputation has taken a beating. In the public mind anarrogant profession has been humbled . . . The profession itself is sufferingfrom guilt and rancour. In a recent lecture, Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobelprize in economics in 2008, argued that much of the past 30 years ofmacroeconomics was “spectacularly useless at best, and positively harmful atworst.” Barry Eichengreen, a prominent American economic historian, says thecrisis has “cast into doubt much of what we thought we knew about economics.”

· 9/2/2009 - How Did Economists Get It SoWrong? by Paul Krugman

There wasnothing in the prevailing models suggesting the possibility of the kind ofcollapse that happened last year.

· 1/10/2011 - IMF Performance in the Run-Up tothe Financial and Economic Crisis: IMF Surveillance in 2004–07

The IMF’sability to correctly identify the mounting risks was hindered by a high degreeof groupthink, intellectual capture, a general mindset that a major financialcrisis in large advanced economies was unlikely, and inadequate analyticalapproaches.

· 5/20/2011 - Neo-Voodoo Economics byJim Tankersley and Chicago Economics on Trialin the WSJ

· 11/20/2011 - Robin Wells: We Are Greg Mankiw…or Not?

· 12/16/2011 - It's time for economic theory toevolve by Kevin Kaiser in Fortune

Last month,seventy freshmen at Harvard walked out of Gregory Mankiw's introductoryEconomics 10 lecture; they wrote to the well-known economist that his course"espouses a specific – and limited – view of economics that we believeperpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in oursociety today."

German physicist Max Planck said that, "Science advances one funeral at atime." And Keen concurs: "You cannot persuade people who believe amythical vision of reality and their whole lives are dedicated to believingthat way."

Keen aptly states, "If economics is to become less of a religion and moreof a science, then the foundations of economics should be torn down andreplaced." We are on the way.

· 12/22/2011 Philip Mirowski's The Seekers, or How MainstreamEconomists Have Defended Their Discipline Since 2008 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 via NakedCapitalism

· 12/31/2011 - Marginal revolutionaries in the Economist

The crisisand the blogosphere have opened mainstream economics up to new attack.

· 1/19/2012 - Economists: A Profession at Sea:How to keep economists from missing the next financial crisis from Time

· 1/26/2012 - What future for economics?

orthodoxeconomics had, in the years leading up to the crisis, become more a cult than ascience, particularly with the assumption that what exists in competitivemarkets has to be the best possible outcome, since, if it were not, it couldnot exist. So, if crises are not predicted, it is because they cannot be: theyare the result of unexpected shocks, by assumption.

· 2/6/2012 - How Economics Contributed to theFinancial Crisis

Some other recent books discussing the state of economics.

· 4/8/2010 - How the Economy Works: Confidence,Crashes and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies by Roger E. A. Farmer

"Of allthe economic bubbles that have been pricked," the editors of The Economistrecently observed, "few have burst more spectacularly than the reputationof economics itself." Indeed, the financial crisis that crested in 2008destroyed the credibility of the economic thinking that had guided policymakersfor a generation.

· 6/21/2010 - The Puzzle of Modern Economics:Science or Ideology? by Roger Backhouse

Doeseconomics hold the key to everything or does the recent financial crisis showthat it has failed?

· 1/1/2011 - Maynard's Revenge: The Collapse ofFree Market Macroeconomics by Lance Taylor

It is nowwidely agreed that mainstream macroeconomics is irrelevant and that there isneed for a more useful and realistic economic analysis that can provide abetter understanding of the ongoing global financial and economic crisis. LanceTaylor’s book exposes the unrealistic assumptions of the rational expectationsand real business cycle approaches and of mainstream finance theory.

7/13/2011- What Went Wrongwith Economics: The flawed assumptions that led economists astray byMichael Reiss

To see the orginal article, click here

To read more on this topic, check out Debunking Economics by Steve Keen, available from Zed Books

Naked Capitalism: The Global Minotaur: An Interview with Yanis Varoufakis

2012-02-13T17:57:00.000Z

Yves here. I hate to throw a spanner in the works, but as much as Varoufakis’ view may sound persuasive, I strongly suggest you read Andrew Dittmer’s translation of a very important paper by Claudio Borio and Piti Disyatat of the Bank of International Settlements, “Global imbalances and the financial crisis: Link or no link?”

Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist who currently heads the Department of Economic Policy at the University of Athens. From 2004 to 2007 he served as an economic advisor to former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou. Yanis writes a popular blog which can be found here. His latest book ‘The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy’ is available from Amazon.

Interview conducted by Philip Pilkington

Philip Pilkington: In your book The Global Minotaur: America, The True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy you lay out the case that this ongoing economic crisis has very deep roots. You claim that while many popular accounts – from greed run rampant to regulatory capture – do explain certain features of the current crisis, they do not deal with the real underlying issue, which is the way in which the current global economy is structured. Could you briefly explain why these popular accounts come up short?

Yanis Varoufakis: It is true that, in the decades preceding the Crash of 2008, greed had become the new creed; that banks and hedge funds were bending the regulatory authorities to their iron will; that financiers believed their own rhetoric and were, thus, convinced that their financial products represented ‘riskless risk’. However, this roll call of pre-2008 era’s phenomena leaves us with the nagging feeling that we are missing something important; that, all these separate truths were mere symptoms, rather than causes, of the juggernaut that was speeding headlong to the 2008 Crash. Greed has been around since time immemorial. Bankers have always tried to bend the rules. Financiers were on the lookout for new forms of deceptive debt since the time of the Pharaohs. Why did the post-1971 era allow greed to dominate and the financial sector to dictate its terms and conditions on the rest of the global social economy? My book begins with an intention to home in on the deeper cause behind all these distinct but intertwined phenomena.

PP: Right, these trends need to be contextalised. What, then, do you find the roots of the crisis to be?

YV: They are to be found in the main ingredients of the second post-war phase that began in 1971 and the way in which these ‘ingredients’ created a major growth drive based on what Paul Volcker had described, shortly after becoming the President of the Federal Reserve, as the ‘controlled disintegration of the world economy’.

It all began when postwar US hegemony could no longer be based on America’s deft recycling of its surpluses to Europe and Asia. Why couldn’t it? Because its surpluses, by the end of the 1960s, had turned into deficits; the famous twin deficits (budget and balance of trade deficits). Around 1971, US authorities were drawn to an audacious strategic move: instead of tackling the nation’s burgeoning twin deficits, America’s top policy makers decided to do the opposite: to boost deficits. And who would pay for them? The rest of the world! How? By means of a permanent transfer of capital that rushed ceaselessly across the two great oceans to finance America’s twin deficits.

The twin deficits of the US economy, thus, operated for decades like a giant vacuum cleaner, absorbing other people’s surplus goods and capital. While that ‘arrangement’ was the embodiment of the grossest imbalance imaginable at a planetary scale (recall Paul Volcker’s apt expression), nonetheless, it did give rise to something resembling global balance; an international system of rapidly accelerating asymmetrical financial and trade flows capable of putting on a semblance of stability and steady growth.

Powered by America’s twin deficits, the world’s leading surplus economies (e.g. Germany, Japan and, later, China) kept churning out the goods while America absorbed them. Almost 70% of the profits made globally by these countries were then transferred back to the United States, in the form of capital flows to Wall Street. And what did Wall Street do with it? It turned these capital inflows into direct investments, shares, new financial instruments, new and old forms of loans etc.

It is through this prism that we can contextualise the rise of financialisation, the triumph of greed, the retreat of regulators, the domination of the Anglo-Celtic growth model; all these phenomena that typified the era suddenly appear as mere by-products of the massive capital flows necessary to feed the twin deficits of the United States.

PP: You seem to locate the turning point here at the moment when Richard Nixon took the US off the gold standard and dissolved the Bretton Woods system. Why is this to be seen as the turning point? What effect did de-pegging the dollar to gold have?

YV: It was a symbolic moment; the official announcement that the Global Plan of the New Dealers was dead and buried. At the same time it was a highly pragmatic move. For, unlike our European leaders today, who have spectacularly failed to see the writing on the wall (i.e. that the euro-system, as designed in the 1990s, has no future in the post-2008 world), the Nixon administration had the sense to recognise immediately that a Global Plan was history. Why? Because it was predicated upon the simple idea that the world economy would be governed by (a) fixed exchange rates, and (b) a Global Surplus Recycling Mechanism (GSRM) to be administered by Washington and which would be recycling to Europe and Asia the surpluses of the United States.

What Nixon and his administration recognised was that, once the US had become a deficit country, this GSRM could no longer function as designed. Paul Volcker, who was Henry Kissinger’s under-study at the time (before the latter moved to the State Department), had identified with immense clarity America’s new, stark choice: either it would have to shrink its economic and geopolitical reach (by adopting austerity measures for the purpose of reigning in the US trade deficit) or it would seek to maintain, indeed to expand, its hegemony by expanding its deficits and, at once, creating the circumstances that would allow the United States to remain the West’s Surplus Recycler, only this time it would be recycling the surpluses of the rest of the world (Germany, Japan, the oil producing states and, later, China).

The grand declaration of 15th August 1971, by President Nixon, and the message that US Treasury Secretary John Connally was soon to deliver to European leaders (“It’s our currency but it is your problem.”) was not an admission of failure. Rather, it was the foreshadowing of a new era of US hegemony, based on the reversal of trade and capital surpluses. It is for this reason that I think the Nixon declaration symbolises an important moment in postwar capitalist history.

PP: The old banking proverb: “If you owe a bank thousands, you have a problem; owe a bank millions, the bank has a problem” comes to mind. Was this, then, the end of the hegemony of the US as lender and the beginning of the hegemony of the US as borrower? And if so, does this provide us with any insights into the financial crisis of 2008?

YV: I suppose that Connally’s “It’s our currency but it is your problem” turned out to be the new version of the old banking adage that you mention. Only there is an important twist here: in the case of the banks, when they fail, there is always the Fed or some other Central Bank to stand behind them. In the case of Europe and Japan in 1971, no such support was at hand. The IMF was, let’s not forget, an organisation whose purpose was to fund countries (of the periphery mostly) that faced balance of payments deficits.

Connally’s phrase was aimed at countries that had a balance of payments surplus in relation to the United States. Additionally, when a heavily indebted person or entity tells the bank that it is the one with the problem, and not the indebted, this is usually a bargaining ploy by which to secure better terms from the bank, a partial write down on the debt etc. In the case of Connally’s trip to Europe, shortly after the Nixon announcement, the United States was not asking anything from Europeans. It was simply announcing that the game had changed: energy prices would rise faster in Europe and in Japan than in America, and relative nominal interest rates would play a major role in helping shape capital flows toward the United States.

The new hegemony was thus beginning. The hegemon would, henceforth, be recycling other people’s capital. It would expand its trade deficit and pay for it via the voluntary flows of capital into New York; flows that began in earnest especially after Paul Volcker pushed US interest rates through the roof.

PP: And this new hegemony grew almost organically out of the preeminence of the dollar as a world reserve currency that had grown up in the post-war years, right? Could you say something about this?

YV: The ‘exorbitant privilege’ of the dollar, courtesy of its reserve currency status, was one of the factors that allowed the United States to become the recycler of other people’s capital (while America was busily expanding its trade deficit). While crucial it was not the only factor. Another was the United States’ dominance of the energy sector and its geostrategic might. To attract wave upon wave of capital from Europe, Japan and the oil producing nations, the US had to ensure that the returns to capital moving to New York were superior to capital moving into Frankfurt, Paris or Tokyo. This required a few prerequisites: A lower US inflation rate, lower US price volatility, relatively lower US energy costs and lower remuneration for American workers.

The fact that the dollar was the reserve currency meant that, in a time of crisis, capital flew into Wall Street anyway (as it was to do again years later when, despite Wall Street’s collapse, foreign capital rushed into Wall Street in the Fall of 2008). However, the volume of capital flows that had to flood Wall Street (in order to keep the US trade deficit financed) would not have materialised had it not been for the capacity of the United States to precipitate a surge in the price of oil at a time when (a) US dependence on oil was lower than Japan’s or Germany’s, (b) most oil trades were channeled via US multinationals, (c) the US could suppress inflation by raising interest rates to levels that would destroy German and Japanese industries (without totally killing American companies) and (d) trades unions and social norms that prevented a ruthless suppression of real wages were far ‘softer’ in the US than in Germany or Japan.

PP: You write in the book that US officials were actually not that concerned about the rising oil prices in the 1970s, why do you say this? And do you think that the recent speculative pressures on oil and food prices – emanating from Wall Street itself – have been largely tolerated by US officials for similar reasons?

YV: The reason is in the old joke that has one economics professor asking another “How is your wife?” and receives the reply: “Relative to what?” The whole point about attracting capital and gaining competitiveness over another company or, indeed, another country, is that what matters is not absolute but relative costs and prices. Yes, the US authorities were concerned about inflation and oil prices. They did not like their increases, especially when they could not control them fully. But there was one thing that they feared more: An incapacity to finance the growing US trade deficit (that would result if the returns to capital were not improving relative to similar returns elsewhere). It was in this context that their considered opinion was that a hike in energy prices, to the extent that it boosted German and Japanese costs more than it did US costs, was their optimal choice.

As for the comparison with the recent rise in oil and, primarily, food prices, I think this is quite different. For one, I do not see what US interests are being served by the ways in which derivatives in the Chicago marker are pushing food prices to a level that threaten the Fed’s quantitative easing strategy courtesy of the inflationary pressures they are causing. Additionally, back in the early 1970s, the US government was far more in control of financial flows and speculative drives than it is today. Having allowed the genie of financialisation out of the bottle, US authorities are watching it wreak havoc almost helplessly – especially given the inherent ungovernability of the United States, with Congress and the Administration locked into mortal combat with one another. In sharp contrast, back in 1971-73, the US government had a great deal more authority over the markets now.

PP: I’d like to move on to what I think is the key point of your book: namely, that the rest of the world is funding the US’s twin deficits – that is, the rest of the world is funding both the US trade deficit and the US government deficit.

When the twin deficits began to open up in the US there was a fundamental change in the nature of the US economy. Could you talk about this a little?

YV: The change was earth-shattering for America’s social economy. The strategy of allowing the deficits to expand inexorably came hand-in-hand with a series of strategies whose purpose was, quite simply, to draw into the United States the capital flows, from the rest of the world that would finance these growing deficits. In my book I tried to detail four major strategies that proved crucial in generating the capital tsunami which kept America’s deficits satiated: (1) a global boost in energy prices that would affect disproportionately Japanese and German industries (relatively to US firms), (2) a hike in America’s real interest rate (so as to make New York a more attractive destination for foreign capital), (3) a much cheapened American labour that is, at once, greatly more productive, and (4) a drive toward Wall Street financialisation that created even greater returns for anyone sending capital to New York.

These strategies had a profound effect on American society for a variety of reasons: To keep real interest rates high, the nominal interest rate was pushed upwards at a time that the administration, and the Fed, engineered a reduction in wages. The increasing interest rates shifted capital from local industry to foreign direct investment and transferred income from workers to rentiers. The cheapening of labour, which also necessitated a wholesale attack against the trades unions, meant that American families had to work longer days for less money; a new reality that led to the breakdown of the family unit in ways which had never been experienced before. The more family values were becoming the emerging Right’s mantle, the greater their destruction at the hands of the Global Minotaur that the Right was keenly nourishing.

The loss of wage share meant, moreover, that families had to rely more greatly on their home as a cash cow (using it as collateral in order to secure more loans) thus turning a whole generation away from savings and towards house-bound leverage. A new form of global corporation was created (the Wal-Mart model) which imported everything from abroad, used cheap labour domestically for manning the warehouse like outlets, and propagated a new ideology of cheapness. Meanwhile, Wall Street was using the capital inflows from abroad to go on a frenzy of lucrative take-over and merger activity which was the breeding ground for the financialisation which followed. By combining the domestic hunger for credit (as the working class struggled to make ends meet, even though they worked longer hours and much more productively than before), a link was created between financial flows built upon (i) the humble home of the bottom 60% of society and (ii) the financial inflows of foreign capital into Wall Street. As these two torrents of capital merged, Wall Street’s power over Main Street rose exponentially. With labour losing its value as fast as regulatory authorities were losing their control over the financial sector, the United States was changing fast, losing all the values and ditching all the social conventions that had evolved out of the New Deal. The world’s greatest nation was ready for the Fall.

PP: You mentioned the Wal-Mart model just now. In the book you make a good deal out of this model. Could you explain to the readers why you do and what the significance of it is for the broader economy?

YV: Wal-Mart symbolises a significant change in the nature of oligopolistic capital. Unlike the first large corporations that created wholly new sectors by means of some invention (e.g. Edison with the light bulb, Microsoft with its Windows software, Sony with the Walkman, or Apple with the iPod/iPhone/iTunes package), or other companies that focused on building a particular brand (e.g. Coca Cola or Marlboro), Wal-Mart did something no one had ever thought of before: It packaged a new Ideology of Cheapness into a brand that was meant to appeal to the financially stressed American working and lower-middle classes. In conjunction with its fierce proscription of trades unions, it became a bulwark of keeping prices low and of extending to its long suffering working class customers a sense of satisfaction for having shared in the exploitation of the (mostly foreign) producers of the goods in their shopping basket.

In this sense, the significance of Wal-Mart for the broader economy is that it represents a new type of corporation which evolved in response to the circumstances brought on by the Global Minotaur. It reified cheapness and profited from amplifying the feedback between falling prices and falling purchasing power on the part of the American working class. It imported the Third World into American towns and regions and exported jobs to the Third World (through outsourcing). Wherever we look, even in the most technologically advanced US corporations (e.g. Apple), we cannot fail to recognise the influence of the Wal-Mart model.

PP: Finally, where do you see us headed now as we emerge from the shadow of the Global Minotaur?

YV: The Minotaur is, of course, a metaphor for the strange Global Surplus Recycling Mechanism (GSRM) that emerged in the 1970s from the ashes of Bretton Woods and succeeded in keeping global capitalism in a rapturous élan; until it broke down in 2008, under the weight of its (and especially Wall Street’s) hubris. Post-2008, the world economy is stumbling around, rudderless, in the absence of a GSRM to replace the Minotaur. The Crisis that began in 2008 mutates and migrates from one sector to another, from one continent to the next. Its legacy is generalised uncertainty, a dearth of aggregate demand, an inability to shift savings into productive investment, a failure of coordination at all levels of socio-economic life.

A world without the Minotaur, without a functioning GSRM, but one that is ruled by the Beast’s handmaidens, is an illogical, absurd place. And who are the Minotaur’s surviving handmaidens? They are Wall Street, Walmart, Germany’s provincial mercantilism, the European Union’s absurd pretence that a currency union can prosper without a surplus recycling mechanism, the growing inequities within the United States, within Europe, within China, etc., etc.

The best example of our world’s inability to come to terms with its conundrum is the way in which public debate deals with the so-called global imbalances: the systematically increasing trade surplus of some countries (Germany and China are good examples), which are mirrored in increasing trade deficits in others. All commentators are now in agreement that increasing global imbalances are a terrible thing. One would, consequently, be excused for imagining that a reduction in global imbalances would have been welcomed. But alas, the opposite is the case. When the imbalances shrink (e.g. China’s trade surplus declines) this is a sign of trouble, rather than an improvement. The reason is that the cause of the imbalance’s shrinkage is not a better, a more productive recycling of surpluses, but rather a deepening recession in the countries that used to provide the demand for someone else’s net exports. So we are in the weird situation of exorcising global imbalances, while at the same time suffering when they diminish.

The West, caught in Bankruptocracy’s poisonous web, unable to rise to the challenges of the post-2008 world, will keep stagnating, losing its grip on reality, failing to match its outcomes to its capacities or to create new ‘realities’. As for the emerging economies, bristling with people ready to transcend constraints, to spawn new ‘realities’, to expand existing horizons, they will be caught in a trap of low overall demand for their wares. Unless a new GSRM materialises soon, the future of the global economy will remain bleak. What will it take to fashion a GSRM from scratch? One thing is certain: markets will not spontaneously generate one. A new GSRM must be the result of concerted political action. Just like Bretton Woods once was.

How Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Won Re-Election as President of Liberia

2012-02-13T17:49:00.002Z

An African World TV Exclusive on How Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Won Re-election as Liberia President

Watch the interview here

So how did she pull it off? The Chairman of Sirleaf’s ruling Unity Party, Varney Sherman, answers this and other questions about Sirleaf’s victory and her broad plans for a second term in an exclusive interview with the African World.

Many expected Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to face a tough time winning re-election last fall. First elected in 2005 for a 6-year term, she had made progress on solving some of the many problems Liberia faces after more than a decade of civil strife and war, but many challenges, such as reducing the country’s high unemployment rate and what some perceived as her indifference to tackling widespread corruption, loomed as she prepared for re-election last year. Despite these problems, Sirleaf easily garnered over 40 percent of the vote in the first round, sending her into the second round against Winston Tubman of the Congress for Democratic Change Party (CDC) of former soccer star George Weah, which she won without much sweat after the CDC boycotted the polls, claiming fraud and bias on the part of the National Election Commission.

Steve Keen, Debunking Economics

2012-02-13T17:37:00.001Z

A profession that has completely failed as a service to society has been economics. When we need it most, wise counsel, full and clear explanatons, non political motivations, the Economist went missing in action!

Steve Keen of DebtDeflation.com explains the truth about economics. For the investor you need to know economics so the Economist cant fool you!

A long video, but worth every minute!

For more on this topic, check out the new revised and expanded edition of Debunking Economics, available from Zed Books

Somalia: Why Latest Foreign 'Re-Colonisation' Project Is Doomed to Fail

2012-02-13T16:36:00.001Z

In the first two decades of the 20th century, Somali warrior-poet Seyyid Mohammed Abdulle Hassan (nicknamed the "Mad Mullah" by the British) fought against European forces trying to assert their influence in Somalia. His attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, but Hassan remains a source of inspiration among Somalis.

Foreign intervention and occupation have always been violently resisted in Somalia, as demonstrated right from the "Black Hawk Down" incident that led to the evacuation of US forces from Somalia in the early 1990s to the recent retreat of Ethiopian forces when they tried to assert their authority in Mogadishu after the fall of the Islamic Courts Union.

Some argue that the quagmire in Somalia is the result of too much -- not too little -- foreign interference, be it in the form of military invasions, humanitarian aid, and even the extreme form of Islam (Salafism) imported from Saudi Arabia by Al-Shabaab.

Even when the intervention appears to be for the good of Somalia -- such as providing aid during a famine -- failure by outsiders to understand the fiercely independent character of Somalis contributes to more conflict and misunderstanding, as pointed out by BBC journalist Mary Harper in her new book Getting Somalia Wrong?

That is why a conference set to take place in London next week is viewed with suspicion by many Somalis. Hosted by the British Government, the conference aims to "deliver a new international approach to Somalia" by bringing together more than 40 countries and multilateral organisations that will decide how Somalia is to be governed once the term of the Transitional Federal Government expires in August this year.

Among the proposals for the way forward are the establishment of a supreme authority and a Joint Financial Management Board (comprising mainly donor countries) that will manage and coordinate how donor and domestic funds and resources are to be used (essentially, doing the work of a Finance ministry) and increased funding for Amisom and Somali security forces.

An even more absurd proposal has been submitted by the government of Italy, which has suggested the establishment of a joint United Nations/African Union international administration comprising a core group of key "stakeholders", such as the United States, the European Union, and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development.

Many Somalis are understandably disgusted by these proposals because they view them as yet another attempt to "colonise" Somalia. Abdirizak Mohamed, the editor of Hiraan Online, says that he was particularly dumbfounded by the Italian submission as it proposes an international administration to be named as caretaker for Somalia from August 2012 to December 2013.

The Italian proposal is equivalent to the Paul Bremen-led authority imposed by the United States in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Although the Somali Transitional Federal Government has been invited to the conference, it lacks the legitimacy and authority to make decisions on an equal footing with the other so-called "stakeholders".

While the conference purports to address security concerns, particularly piracy and terrorism, the ultimate intention of the conference, according to many Somali analysts, could be to undermine Somalia's sovereignty and subject the Somali people to a new form of colonialism -- including by "proxy states" such as Kenya and Ethiopia, which are sending high-level delegations to the conference.

The sense of humiliation that many Somalis feel about the conference is best described by Arman, who in an op-ed article in Eurasia Review writes: "At this dreadful moment in its history -- when the obituary of a nation on life-support is being written -- political correctness is a luxury that Somalis cannot afford."

He proposes that Somalia adopt a new paradigm and engage with less intrusive partners (probably a reference to Turkey, which has been active in delivering humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Somalia). Many Somali academics and analysts have also called for home-grown solutions to the Somali crisis.

What the British Government and its allies must realise is that their top-down, Eurocentric approach in Somalia may look good on paper, but will most likely face fierce resistance on the ground.

Source: AllAfrica.com

Copyrights: Rasna Warah

Liberia: Judges Reject Taylor's Request to Reopen Case

2012-02-13T16:17:00.000Z

Judges of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague have rejected a request by former Liberian President Charles Taylor to reopen his defense case.

On February 9, the judges unanimously ruled that the Taylor defense "has failed to establish any justification for the re-opening of its case."

Taylor's defense team filed a motion on January 31, 2012 to reopen its case in order to seek the admission of a December 2011 report of a UN Panel of Experts on Liberia. The UN Experts report discusses the participation of Liberian mercenaries in the conflict in neighboring Ivory Coast and this, defense lawyers say, does not lay blame on the current Liberian government as being involved or complicit in the movement of fighters from its country to a neighboring country.

Defense lawyers argue this report supports their argument that during the Sierra Leonean conflict, it was possible for fighters to cross from Liberia into Sierra Leone "without being under the direction and control of Mr. Taylor and without the implicit approval of the Government of Liberia." Defense lawyers further stated in their motion that one person named in the UN report as a Liberian mercenary fighter in Ivory Coast is Joseph Zig Zag Marzah, a prosecution witness who testified that his movement into Sierra Leone to provide assistance to Sierra Leonean rebels was directed by Taylor. His movement into Ivory Coast in 2010 and 2011 shows that he easily could have moved into Sierra Leone as a mercenary solely for his own benefit and this discredits his evidence against Taylor.

On February 7, prosecution lawyers responded to the defense motion arguing, among other things, that "excerpts of the Report...have no probative value or relevance to support the defense arguments," that "admission of the proposed evidence at this advanced stage prejudices the Prosecution which will have no opportunity to address the issues before the trial judgment is delivered," and that "proceedings are at an advanced stage and admitting the proposed evidence could delay the completion of the judicial process."

In its decision issued yesterday, the judges said they considered the effect that reopening of the case would have on this stage of the proceedings as well as the fact that the crime base and time frame, which are subjects of the charges against Taylor, do not bear correlation to the subject of the Expert Panel Report that talks about the flow of Liberian fighters into Ivory Coast.

"The Trial Chamber considers that at this advanced stage of the proceedings, re-opening the trial would result in undue delay," the judges noted in their decision.

Referencing the correlation between the events in Sierra Leone and those in Ivory Coast, the judges noted that "no parallels can validly be drawn between events that took place in Cote d'Ivoire during the period 2010/2011 and events that took place in Sierra Leone during the indictment period."

"The Trial Chamber therefore finds that the Report is not relevant to the issues to be decided in this case and has no probative value," the judges concluded.

The evidence phase of the proceedings against the former Liberian president was concluded in early 2011 when both prosecution and defense lawyers made their closing submissions. The judges then commenced deliberations on the evidence in order to deliver their trial judgment which would determine the guilt or innocence of Mr. Taylor.

Taylor is charged with 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Sierra Leone from November 1996 to January 2002. Taylor has denied the charges against him and has called his trial a conspiracy of Western countries, mainly the United States and the United Kingdom to get him out of Liberia. He says that his involvement in Sierra Leone was to help bring peace to the war-torn West African nation.

It is anticipated that the trial judgment in this case will be delivered in the early part of this year. Depending on the outcome of the judgment, both prosecution and defense will have the opportunity to file appeals.

Copyrights: Alpha Sesay
Source: AllAfrica.com

To learn more about Liberia and Charles Taylor read

Charles Taylor and Liberia

by Colin M. Waugh

Capital FM News: DR Congo president’s aide killed in plane crash

2012-02-13T16:02:00.001Z

KINSHASA, Feb 13 – A close aide to DR Congo President Joseph Kabila was killed and the country’s finance minister seriously injured in a plane crash on Sunday in the east of the country, the president’s office said.

Two American crew members also died, as well as two people crushed by the plane as it came down at Bukavu airport.

The statement identified Kabila’s aide as Augustin Katumba Mwanke, 48, considered a key member of Kabila’s entourage, who had the ear of the president.

Finance Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo was in a serious condition, while Sud-Kivu governor Marcellin Tshisambo had suffered fractures in both legs, said an airport official.

The plane overshot the runway at Bukavu airport, the president’s office said.

“The toll is three dead among those on board the plane: Mr. Katumba Mwanke, the American pilot and copilot,” Interior Minister Katumba Mwanke told reporters.

“There were also two farmers, whose bodies were found under the plane,” he added. The plane was carrying nine people, including the crew, he said.

Mwanke and the pilot had “died on the spot,” a source at the presidency said.

The twin-engine Gulfstream 200 had flown in from the capital Kinshasa via Goma and apparently missed its landing at Bukavu airport, in the vast country’s east.

“It touched down only halfway down the runway and went skidding into a ditch beyond the runway. The plane is damaged,” a Bukavu airport official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“The weather was good, I think (the pilot) might have misjudged the runway because (this is) the first time this crew was flying to Bukavu,” he added.

The accident happened at around 2:00 pm (1200 GMT).

Antoine Ghonda, a lawmaker who had previously served as a roving ambassador for Kabila, was also among the injured, the airport official added.

Mwanke had won re-election last year as an MP from southern Katanga for the ruling People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), of which he was a co-founder.

He was criticised in a report by UN panel of experts as having used his leverage in Kinshasa to obtain substantial tax exemptions for a mining company of whose board he was a member.

This network had transferred assets worth $5 billion from the state-owned mining sector to the private companies they controlled, without paying any compensation to the treasury, said the UN report.

The UN panel had recommended sanctions including travel bans, freezing personal assets and barring access to banking facilities against Mwanke and several other officials.

They were all suspected of links to criminal cartels, which included Congolese and Zimbabweans, that were plundering the country’s mineral resources.

Tshisambo was a political adviser to Kabila before his election as Sud-Kivu governor in 2010.

Plane crashes are frequent in the DR Congo.

Some 50 airlines operate in the vast central African country, all of which are on a European Union blacklist barring them from operating in the EU because of their safety record.

'Women in Israel' Review

2012-02-13T15:49:00.001Z

A new version of "Women in Israel - the state and citizenship", Nahla Abdo to
48 Lord of the p
Date Published: 25/08/2011 - Last updated: 23:00

Recently released the new version of the book "Women in Israel - the state and citizenship", the feminist researcher, Professor Nahla Abdo, from Carleton University in Canada.

This book provides an in-depth reading of the reality in Israel Women's from a new perspective, and focuses on marginalized groups and relations between them and the dominant group Alo_kinaziat.

The first edition of the Arabic language was published in 2009 by the Foundation over the - the Palestinian Center for Israel Studies, and containing Edition Alaclezah new published recently, theoretical background and historical about experiences living waged by marginalized women, of the population the indigenous, ie, Palestinian, and Jewish belly.

Professor Nahla Abdo, feminist activist and Arab political, lecturer in sociology at the University of Carleton in Canada, and her many contributions to women's issues, racism, nationalism and the state in the Middle East, which is specialized in studies of Palestinian women.

Put Abdo study of women in Israel in its historical context, through the dismantling of the relationship feminist state and identity, and how it reflected Ptsaad Ala_kinaziat on the belly, certainly, and before that, the reflection character of the colonial state on Palestinian women, and the fabric of her life the social and economic-related land that robbed most of them.

Says Professor Leila Abu wattle, The strength of this book comes from the strength of evidence and the evidence provided, and in-depth analysis of the intersection of gender, race and class.

The professor Yuval Nera - Davis, says about the book that he was able to discuss the issue of citizenship and social status did not provide a comprehensive way of

As Prof. Nicola Pratt, she had seen in the search method conceptual adopted in the book - a method of political economy - a quantum leap gives new life to the feminist discourse on women and citizenship; added Dr. Rosemary Sayigh, that this book has succeeded greatly in the integration of scientific, literary, or theories of meeting with women's literature.

The book consists of four chapters: Chapter I in the literature of Israeli citizenship generally, and seeks at the same time that provides a framework feminist to analyze the citizenship of women; Chapter II deals with the historical context of the specified, and the moments that have affected the situation of different groups of women in Israel, and set up and then re-formed , together with the results and the effects of the nature of the Israeli state to develop and the conditions of women's economic, social, and political, through a detailed examination of the two areas vital to life and experience: economic rights and the economic situation on the one hand, and educational experiences on the other.

Chapter III deals with the economic status of women in Israel, which is compared to the conditions of Palestinian women with the conditions of Jewish women and Ala_kinaziat Almzrahiat, using the comparative method.

The fourth and final chapter addresses the issue of women's education, by focusing on two groups of women Manmstein: Palestinian Arab, and Jewish Almzrahiat, as victims of Israeli policies of racism, then place the comparison between the two groups and among women Alo_kinaziat.

Click here for the orginial article in Arabic

Check out Women in Israel, available from Zed Books

'A Liberal Peace?' Book Launch

2012-02-13T14:20:00.000Z

Zed Book - 'A Liberal Peace?'

Hosted by the University of Westminster Department of Politics and International Relations

Editors David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnum will be guest speaking

Time - 5:30

Address - Westminster Forum, 5th Floor

Department of Politics and

International Relations

University of Westminster

32-38 Wells Street

(Near Oxford Circus Station)

Royal African Society Event- DR Congo: Beyond the 2011 elections

2012-02-13T12:11:00.000Z

Title:: DR Congo: Beyond the 2011 elections
When:: 14 February, 2012
Where:: SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square - London,WC1H 0XG
Category:: Events/Meetings

DR Congo: Beyond the 2011 elections

Date/Time: February 14th

- Panel 1: 16:00 - 17:30

-Panel 2: 18:00 - 19:30

Venue: School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Lecture Theatre G2, Russell Square Campus

The official results of the recent presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) gave incumbent Joseph Kabila victory with 48.95% of the vote against 32.35% for the runner-up, Étienne Tshisekedi.

President Kabila campaigned for his second term in office under the slogan "for a united Congo". However, the country now stands divided into two camps, between those who believe his re-election to be legitimate and those who don’t.

International observers have also cast doubts over the integrity of the polls, citing allegations of vote-rigging, reports of electoral violence and media restrictions.

DR Congo is a vast, resource-rich country with a painful history of international interference - from Belgian colonialism and Cold War politics to war with Uganda and Rwanda and the recent economic partnership with China.

How then can the people of Congo build a more stable and effective democracy? Is there scope to find long-lasting solutions to the many challenges facing the country - from reform in the natural resource sector through improved infrastructure and wealth distribution to putting an end to the on-going violence? What can both domestic and international actors do to this end?

Join the Royal African Society and the Oxford Central Africa Forum in this high profile event, which will consider the consequences of the DRC’s 2011 elections both at home and abroad and discuss the possibilities for the country’s future.

Panel 1 – THE ELECTIONS AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY, 16:00 - 17:30

Professor Koen Vlassenroot, Director of the Conflict Research Group, Ghent University
Koen Vlassenroot is the Director of the Conflict Research Group at Ghent University. He is a political scientist specialising in the political economy of conflict, non-state armed actors, the processes of identity formation, land access and food security. His work has mainly focussed on Central Africa, especially the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Théodore Trefon, Belgian Royal Museum for Central Africa
Théodore Trefon is a Congo expert specializing in the politics of state-society relations. He has devoted the past 25 years to Congo as a researcher, lecturer, author, project manager and consultant. He heads the Contemporary History Section of the Belgian Royal Museum for Central Africa and is Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Boston University Brussels. Trefon is also the author of Congo Masquerade: The Political Culture of Aid Inefficiency and Reform Failure (African Arguments / ZED Books).

Madame Marie-Thérèse Nlandu Mpolo Nene, human rights lawyer & political leader
Marie-Thérèse Nlandu is a leading human rights lawyer from the DRC. She is also the President of Congo-Pax, the Party for Peace in Congo. Due to her work as a political leader and lawyer, Marie-Thérèse has been in exile twice: From 1993-2002 in Belgium and from 2007-present in the UK. In November 2006, Marie-Thérèse was arrested by agents of the Special Services police and charged with “organising an insurrectionary movement” and “illegal possession of firearms”. She was subsequently detained in Kinshasa's central prison and became an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience. Pressure from Amnesty International and other human rights groups allowed for her eventual acquittal and release. Marie-Thérèse is married with 4 children.

Chair: Harry Verhoeven, Oxford University
Harry Verhoeven has just finished a doctorate at the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University, St Cross College. Harry has a keen interest in the issues of regional conflict, relations between regimes and rebel movements and natural resources, writing on Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo, Uganda and Rwanda. He is the Convenor of Oxford University’s China-Africa Network (OUCAN) and Oxford’s Central Africa Forum (OCAF) and is writing a book on the internal dynamics of Africa's Great War.

Panel 2 – THE FUTURE OF CONGO POST-ELECTIONS - 18:00 - 19:30

Kris Berwouts, Independent Expert on Central Africa

Kris Berwouts studied African languages and history at the University of Ghent in Belgium. Over the past 25 years, he has worked with both Belgian and international NGOs on peace and reconciliation, security and democratic processes. He was the director of the Belgian-based European Network for Central Africa (EurAc) between 2007 and 2012. Now he works as an independent expert on Central Africa.

Eric Joyce MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region of Africa
Eric Joyce has been a Member of Parliament for Falkirk since 2005. As well as having an interest in defence and military issues, Eric is also interested in Africa and development issues and he is currently the Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

Devon Curtis, Cambridge University
Devon Curtis is a University Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) and has been a Fellow of Emmanuel College since 2007. Both her research interests and written work have largely focused on power-sharing and governance, post-conflict, rebel movements in Africa, conflict, peace-building and development. Her field research has taken her to various parts of the Great Lakes Region, including Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She has also worked with both the Canadian government and the UK’s Department for International Development (DIFID) as well as the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

Chair: Marco Jowell, School of Oriental and African Studies
Marco Jowell is a former Senior Research Analyst at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with a particular focus on Central Africa. He is currently a doctoral candidate at SOAS.

Please rsvp to rsvp@royalafricansociety.org

For more information on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, check out Congo Masquerade by Theodore Trefon, available from Zed Books

BBC: Greece MPs pass austerity plan amid violent protests

2012-02-13T10:56:00.003Z

Greek MPs have approved a controversial package of austerity measures, demanded by the eurozone and IMF in return for a 130bn euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout.

The vote was carried by 199 in favour to 74 against.

Coalition parties expelled more than 40 deputies for failing to back the bill.

Tens of thousands protested in Athens, where there were widespread clashes and buildings were set on fire. Violent protests were reported in cities across the country.

Protesters outside parliament threw stones and petrol bombs, and police responded with tear gas. Scores of police and protesters were injured.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos urged calm, insisting that the austerity package would "set the foundations for the reform and recovery of the economy".

Late into the night, buildings in Athens were burning. It was clear that in some areas of the city police had effectively lost control, if only for a short time.

Violence has occurred during votes before, but buildings have not been set ablaze for some time. Every event chips away at the confidence that the state is holding things together.

Emotions were also running high in parliament, with no-one voting for the plan with much enthusiasm. Greeks on the streets feel that the country cannot bear any more austerity. The eurozone's strategy for its survival is feeling the full force of public anger.

"Vandalism, violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country and won't be tolerated," he said in a speech in parliament before the vote.

The bill passed parliament easily as the two largest parties in the coalition - Pasok and New Democracy - account for more than two-thirds of the deputies.

The austerity measures include:

15,000 public-sector job cuts
liberalisation of labour laws
lowering the minimum wage by 20% from 751 euros a month to 600 euros

Eurozone ministers must now ratify the measures at a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday before bailout funds can be released.

The ministers rejected proposals put forward by the Greeks last week, which they said fell 325m euros short of the cuts needed.

The BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens says the public are increasingly angry with the austerity measures and feel that the impact is beyond the value of the bailout.

At least 80,000 people were reported to have joined demonstrations in Athens, with another 20,000 protesting in Thessaloniki.

Running battles with police continued in the capital until late on Sunday, although no new clashes were reported after the vote.

Protesters hurled flares and chunks of marble torn up from the square. Some had tried to break through a cordon of riot police around the parliament.

Several historic buildings, including cafes and cinemas, were set alight.

Ioannis Simantiras, 34, said the protesters were boxed in by police.

"Nobody could get away from the gas," he told the BBC.

"When it engulfed everybody, and everybody was choking the police drew back and opened up a corridor for us away from the parliament - that's when everybody made a run for it."

Violent protests also spread to other Greek towns and cities, including the islands of Corfu and Crete, according to state TV.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the question was not "whether some salaries and pensions will be curtailed, but whether we will be able to pay even these reduced wages and pensions".

"When you have to choose between bad and worse, you will pick what is bad to avoid what is worse," he said.

Greece needs the bailout the make its next repayment on its huge sovereign debt.

If it cannot make the payment, it will default and in effect become bankrupt.

Analysts say such a "chaotic default" could endanger Europe's financial stability and possibly even leading to a break-up of the eurozone.

As part of the deal with international lenders, Greece will also be able to write off 100bn euros of privately held debt.

Earlier this week several ministers from the coalition government, including two from Pasok, quit in protest at the measures.

The leader of the far-right Laos party, the junior coalition member, announced his 15 deputies would not back the austerity measures.

George Karatzaferis complained that the measures amounted to Greeks being "humiliated" by Germany.

The eurozone bloc has demanded "strong political assurances" that the packages will be implemented regardless of which party wins a general election due in April.

BBC © 2012

To learn about the current economic crisis occurring in Greece and across the Eurozone, check out The Global Minotaur available from Zed Books

An Eerie Calm in the DRC

2012-02-10T16:16:00.001Z

Following heavily disputed elections, why has the violence many predicted not been seen?

Source: Think Africa Press by Alistair Smout

Western writers commentating on the Democratic Republic of the Congo are more used to describing political violence than accounting for its absence. However, since Joseph Kabila was re-elected president last month in elections that were described as “too flawed to be credible”, the violence that followed, although tragic, has been less extensive and damaging than many feared.

John Campbell, in his article for the Atlantic “Anti-Christian Violence, and Maybe Worse, in Congo” attempts to account for the “apparent passivity of the Congolese population” while comparing it to the more impassioned responses of other citizenries, specifically Kenya in 2007 and Zimbabwe in 2008. But while Campbell poses an interesting question and points to important factors of diversity and ethnic rivalry, he fails to qualify or contextualize them. In the course of his argument, however, Campbell makes some substantive claims, which are worth examining in more detail.

Alienation

Campbell argues that in Nigeria and Congo much of the population has historically felt alienated from the government, which is seen as following its own agenda with little input from the general populace. This sense of alienation may empower secessionism, as seen historically in the Biafran War, or movements in Katanga or Kasai. However, Campbell seems ready to ascribe both political apathy and secessionist politics to the effects of alienation. This is not implausible, but other variables must be taken into account to provide a comprehensive explanation of these varying responses.

The idea of alienation as engendering resignation rather than anger has some traction, particularly in the case of the DRC. In her book In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz, Michela Wrong, for example, traces such a culture in Congolese history, in which political hegemony is established by King Leopold II, transformed yet maintained by Mobutu, and the Congolese people are blunted into acceptance, diverting their efforts into pursuits other than changing politics. Similarly, Adam Nossiter observes that daily struggles to find food are enough without needing to be concerned by Kinshasa politics.

While there is truth in this interpretation, however, it may be overly deterministic. Before the recent elections in the DRC there was a great deal of hope and optimism that the elections might bring about real change.

Pre-election optimism, however, turned to resignation amidst post-election violence. And it seems that alienation is not inevitable but at least partly a consequence of repression.

The opposition

What could lift the sense of resignation and alienation from politics and provide a sustained threat to a policy of repression? A well organised opposition seems a good place to start.

Etienne Tshisekedi, who has been placed under house arrest by Kabila since declaring himself the true president of the DRC, can talk coherently of the DRC’s problems and how he might tackle them. Having served in some of Mobutu’s early governments, he has managed to stay consistently in opposition for 30 years. He played a lead role in the attempted democratisation of Zaire in the early-90s, and at one time managed to hold the position of Prime Minister while managing to frustrate both Mobutu-ists and former president Laurent Kabila’s AFDL.

He has also managed to emerge from years of war in the DRC without being implicated in the violence, a big step for Congolese opposition politicians, given that Joseph Kabila’s main opponent in the 2006 elections of 2006, Jean-Pierre Bemba, is now on trial at the ICC from war crimes.

However, Tshisekedi is not always perceived as the most unifying of figures and Michela Wrong describes him as “mulish”. Theodore Trefon puts it more bluntly, commenting, "stubborn and megalomaniac, Tshesikedi (sic) is also unpredictable”. This makes him far from the ideal opposition leader. And indeed, his political strategies neither enabled him to win the majority of votes in the election nor handle the post-election environment in a way that would be politically beneficial for him.

This may be to the collective benefit of the Congolese people, and maybe Tshisekedi should take credit for maintaining the fragile peace over the Congo. Such credit might be more deserved, however, if he had been advocating peaceful resistance, for example. Instead there has been a strange mixture of bullish defiance and belligerent rhetoric, occasionally bordering on delusional. Any hope that his supporters had that he is substantially different to previous leaders, or that he can somehow harness political discontent in a peaceful way, has been dwindling.

Gérard Prunier wrote of Tshisekedi’s similarly erratic approach to the 2006 elections (where he flip-flopped as to whether he was going to contest them) that:

Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo

“The old fighter seemed oddly unresponsive to the new political environment, and the often heard remark about him was that 'he was frozen in 1992', the year of his greatest glory, when he had become prime minister of the Conférence Nationale Souveraine during Mobutu’s aborted 'democratic transition'”

Perhaps this antiquated “mandate” was the basis of his declaration that he had won the 2011 elections before they’d even happened. Either way, his tactics have played straight into Kabila’s hands.

Electoral process

Kabila didn’t win the election when polls opened on November 28, 2011. Nor did he win it when the results were announced on December 9, 2011. He won it almost a year earlier on January 5, 2011.

That was the day the government amended the constitution, abolishing the need for a second round presidential run-off. Unlike his opponent, Kabila has proved himself to be a shrewd political operative. Ten other candidates are easier for an incumbent to beat than one. Even a fantastically charismatic opposition leader, with broad-based support, might find it hard to gain a plurality in such circumstances.

If Tshisekedi had won a plurality of the vote, there is a good chance we would not have known about it. But given that debates on electoral irregularities have focused on the technical side of things (such as on how turnout in some districts exceeded 100%) rather than the consequences of the vote, the assumption seems to be that Tshisekedi was not the true winner.

As it was, Tshisekidi’s parallel inauguration appeared like a bizarre sideshow, not the anointment of a rightful king. And this explains the differing response by the international community that this presidential election received compared to that in the Ivory Coast.

This does not, however, mean the elections were legitimate. Nevertheless, it is still the case that opposition responses have been defanged by Tshisekedi’s failure to demonstrate that he would be a more legitimate leader. Anger, where there is anger, seems to be on the whole directed at the fact that Kabila did not really win, not that Tshisekedi did win. Tshisekedi does not have much political capital to go on to fulfil any mandate he feels he has gained. He can order the government to resign or for a boycott of parliament, but no-one will listen. And the eerie silence over the DRC will remain.

Find out more about CONGO from this fasicnating book by Theodore Trefon

BBC: US tribe sues beer makers for $500m over alcohol abuse

2012-02-10T11:50:00.001Z

An American-Indian tribe in South Dakota has sued some of the world's biggest beer firms over severe alcohol-related issues in the community.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe are asking for $500m (£316m) for healthcare, social services and child rehabilitation.

Tribal elders say the lawsuit is a last resort after efforts to curb abuse through protests and policy failed.

On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation one in four children suffers foetal disorders caused by alcohol abuse.

The lawsuit, filed in the district court of Nebraska, targets Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide, SAB Miller, Molson Coors Brewing Company, MillerCoors LLC, and Pabst Brewing Company.

There was no immediate response from those firms.

'Notorious sales'

The lawsuit also names the nearby town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, which has four beer shops that sold nearly five million beer cans in 2010 despite having only about a dozen residents.

Alcohol is outlawed on the reservation and the nearest town which allows alcohol is 20 miles (32km) away, Mark Vasina, president of Nebraskans for Peace, told the Associated Press news agency.

The lawsuit alleges that beer makers and the shop owners knew the alcohol would be smuggled into the reservation for consumption or resale.

The legal documents allege: "The illegal sale and trade in alcohol in Whiteclay is open, notorious and well documented by news reports, legislative hearings, movies, public protests and law enforcement activities."

Meanwhile, Tom White, the lawyer representing the tribe, told the Associated Press news agency: "You cannot sell 4.9 million 12oz [356ml] cans of beer and wash your hands like Pontius Pilate, and say we've got nothing to do with it being smuggled."

The reservation has grappled with alcohol problems and poverty for generations, and the tribal council has said it hopes the case will help protect the community's youth.

"Like American parents everywhere, we will do everything lawful we can to protect the health, welfare and future of our children," Tribal President John Yellow Bird Steele told the Associated Press news agency.

The reservation, which is about the size of the state of Connecticut, includes Shannon County, the third poorest county in the US.

The median income in the area is $27,300 and almost half of the population is considered to be living below federal poverty standards.

The life expectancy in the community is between 45 and 52 years - the lowest in North America except Haiti - and far below the national average of 77.5 years.

Nebraska State Senator LeRoy Louden has said that after struggling with the problem for years, the state has introduced legislation that would impose restrictions - on the types of alcohol that can be sold and business hours.

To learn more about this lawsuit along with other topics affecting native populations, read The Politics of Indigeneity, available from Zed Books

Perth Writers Festival: Meet the Neighbors

2012-02-10T10:46:00.000Z

Zed Author Paul French, who wrote Oil on Water and North Korea, will be a guest speaker at this event.

India and China seem on track for world domination in the next century. So apart from knowing they have a hunger for our minerals, what else should we know? Paul French, Michael Wesley and Chetan Bhagat. Chair: Krishna Sen.

BBC: Somalia- Al-Shabab bombs Mogadishu cafe

2012-02-09T15:25:00.000Z

At least 15 people have been killed and more than 20 people injured when a car bomb exploded near a cafe in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, officials say.

The vehicle was parked close to the Hotel Muna, often frequented by Somali politicians and itself the target of an attack by militants in August 2010.

The al-Shabab group said it carried out the Wednesday afternoon blast.

But the militant Islamists denied that it was a suicide attack as earlier reported by the police.

The attack is the latest of a series of suicide attacks staged by the al-Qaeda-linked group in Mogadishu - after being pushed out last August by the Somali government and African Union troops.

Drinking tea

The BBC's Mohammed Dhore in Mogadishu says that seven people died at the scene.

Mogadishu Mayor Mohamed Ahmed Nur said the blast had killed 15 "innocent civilians".

Our correspondent says people were drinking tea at a popular cafe in the heart of Mogadishu's government district, when the bomb exploded.

"There was a heavy explosion, a car full of explosives was detonated," MP Mohamed Iro told the AFP news agency.

The attack took place on the day of a visit to the city by the European Union's new special envoy to the Horn of Africa, Alexander Rondos.

Last week, William Hague was also in Mogadishu, the first visit by a British foreign secretary in 20 years.

The UK government is holding a conference in London on 23 February to try to find a political solution, and tackle piracy and extremism.

On Wednesday, Mr Hague said it would mark the beginning of an enduring engagement to end their country's crisis and announced a series of new approaches.

The mandate of the current transitional government could not be extended after seven years of minimal progress, he said.

But the international community would provide support for internal political discussions now under way between Somalis inside the country on how to replace the government, whose mandate expires in August, the UK foreign minister said.

This might involve a constitutional assembly drawn from all Somalia's communities, he said.

He added that the new major diplomatic push to restore stability in Somalia would include dealing directly with the country's many regional administrations.

This will put areas like the semi-autonomous Puntland on a new footing and provide them with additional aid, BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991 and the government in Mogadishu is propped up by a African Union force from Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti.

Kenya and Ethiopian troops are also in Somalia, and analysts say the military fortunes of al-Shabab have dramatically worsened in the last year.

All Africa: Somalia- Rebel Commander 'Killed in Ambush'

2012-02-09T11:50:00.001Z

An Al-Shabaab commander is among 14 militants reported dead after they were ambushed by Kenyan troops in Southern Somalia, the military claimed on Wednesday.

The Kenya Defence Forces named the top Al-Shabaab commander suspected to have been killed by Kenyan troops on Tuesday as Abu Yahya.

"Abu Yahya, who is Al-Shabaab's field commander in the southern sector is suspected to have been gunned down during the allied forces ambush at an Al-Shabaab camp in the area at 4pm," KDF spokesman, Major Emmanuel Chirchir, said in a statement.

The statement added that during the ambush at the Dalayat area, 13 other Al-Shabaab fighters were killed by Kenyan troops while scores escaped with serious injuries.

Major Chirchir said that the Kenyan troops also recovered eight machine guns during the attack.

The area where the fighting took place is a stronghold of the militants and doubles up as their command centre for the southern region.

Major Chirchir said that one Kenyan soldier was injured during the ambush and was flown to Garissa military camp for treatment while two others who suffered minor injuries were treated and had resumed duty.

The military crossed into Somalia last October to flush out the militants blamed for frequent attacks at the Coast and parts of northern Kenya.

The military's ultimate aim is to capture the port of Kismayu used by the militants to collect billions of shillings in illegal taxes.

For a more in-depth look at the current situation in Somalia, check out Mary Harper's Getting Somalia Wrong?, now available from Zed Books.

Al-Jazeera English: The seed emergency: The threat to food and democracy

2012-02-08T16:54:00.002Z

New Delhi, India - The seed is the first link in the food chain - and seed sovereignty is the foundation of food sovereignty. If farmers do not have their own seeds or access to open pollinated varieties that they can save, improve and exchange, they have no seed sovereignty - and consequently no food sovereignty.

The deepening agrarian and food crisis has its roots in changes in the seed supply system, and the erosion of seed diversity and seed sovereignty.

Seed sovereignty includes the farmer's rights to save, breed and exchange seeds, to have access to diverse open source seeds which can be saved - and which are not patented, genetically modified, owned or controlled by emerging seed giants. It is based on reclaiming seeds and biodiversity as commons and public good.

The past twenty years have seen a very rapid erosion of seed diversity and seed sovereignty, and the concentration of the control over seeds by a very small number of giant corporations. In 1995, when the UN organised the Plant Genetic Resources Conference in Leipzig, it was reported that 75 per cent of all agricultural biodiversity had disappeared because of the introduction of "modern" varieties, which are always cultivated as monocultures. Since then, the erosion has accelerated.

The introduction of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the World Trade Organisation has accelerated the spread of genetically engineered seeds - which can be patented - and for which royalties can be collected. Navdanya was started in response to the introduction of these patents on seeds in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - a forerunner to the WTO - about which a Monsanto representative later stated: "In drafting these agreements, we were the patient, diagnostician [and] physician all in one." Corporations defined a problem - and for them the problem was farmers saving seeds. They offered a solution, and the solution was to make it illegal for farmers to save seed - by introducing patents and intellectual property rights [PDF] on those very seeds. As a result, acreage under GM corn, soya, canola, cotton has increased dramatically.

Threats to seed sovereignty

Besides displacing and destroying diversity, patented GMO seeds are also undermining seed sovereignty. Across the world, new seed laws are being introduced which enforce compulsory registration of seeds, thus making it impossible for small farmers to grow their own diversity, and forcing them into dependency on giant seed corporations. Corporations are also patenting climate resilient seeds evolved by farmers - thus robbing farmers of using their own seeds and knowledge for climate adaptation.

Another threat to seed sovereignty is genetic contamination. India has lost its cotton seeds because of contamination from Bt Cotton - a strain engineered to contain the pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium. Canada has lost its canola seed because of contamination from Roundup Ready canola. And Mexico has lost its corn due to contamination from Bt Cotton.

After contamination, biotech seed corporations sue farmers with patent infringement cases, as happened in the case of Percy Schmeiser. That is why more than 80 groups came together and filed a case to prevent Monsanto from suing farmers whose seed had been contaminated.

As a farmer's seed supply is eroded, and farmers become dependent on patented GMO seed, the result is debt. India, the home of cotton, has lost its cotton seed diversity and cotton seed sovereignty. Some 95 per cent of the country's cotton seed is now controlled by Monsanto - and the debt trap created by being forced to buy seed every year - with royalty payments - has pushed hundreds of thousands of farmers to suicide; of the 250,000 farmer suicides, the majority are in the cotton belt.

Seeding control

Even as the disappearance of biodiversity and seed sovereignty creates a major crisis for agriculture and food security, corporations are pushing governments to use public money to destroy the public seed supply and replace it with unreliable non-renewable, patented seed - which must be bought each and every year.

In Europe, the 1994 regulation for protection of plant varieties forces farmers to make a "compulsory voluntary contribution" to seed companies. The terms themselves are contradictory. What is compulsory cannot be voluntary.

In France, a law was passed in November 2011, which makes royalty payments compulsory. As Agriculture Minister Bruna Le Marie stated: "Seeds can be longer be royalty free, as is currently the case." Of the 5,000 or so cultivated plant varieties, 600 are protected by certificate in France, and these account for 99 per cent of the varieties grown by farmers.

The "compulsory voluntary contribution", in other words a royalty, is justified on grounds that "a fee is paid to certificate holders [seed companies] to sustain funding of research and efforts to improve genetic resources".

Monsanto pirates biodiversity and genetic resources from farming communities, as it did in the case of a wheat biopiracy case fought by Navdanya with Greenpeace, and climate resilient crops and brinjal (also known as aubergine or eggplant) varieties for Bt Brinjal. As Monsanto states, "it draws from a collection of germ-plasm that is unparalleled in history" and "mines the diversity in this genetic library to develop elite seeds faster than ever before".

In effect, what is taking place is the enclosure of the genetic commons of our biodiversity and the intellectual commons of public breeding by farming communities and public institutions. And the GMO seeds Monsanto is offering are failing. This is not "improvement" of genetic resources, but degradation. This is not innovation but piracy.

For example, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) - being pushed by the Gates Foundation - is a major assault on Africa's seed sovereignty.

Agribusiness

The 2009 US Global Food Security Act [PDF] also called the Lugar-Casey Act [PDF], "A bill to authorise appropriations for fiscal years 2010 through 2014 to provide assistance to foreign countries to promote food security, to stimulate rural economies, and to improve emergency response to food crisis, to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and for other purposes".

The amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act would "include research on bio-technological advances appropriate to local ecological conditions, including genetically modified technology". The $ 7.7bn that goes with the bill would go to benefit Monsanto to push GM seeds.

An article in Forbes, titled "Why Uncle Sam Supports Franken Foods", shows how agribusiness is the only sector in which US has a positive trade balance. Hence the push for GMOs - because they bring royalties to the US. However, royalties for Monsanto are based on debt, suicidal farmers and the disappearance of biodiversity worldwide.

Under the US Global Food Security Act, Nepal signed an agreement with USAID and Monsanto. This led to massive protests across the country. India was forced to allow patents on seeds through the first dispute brought by the US against India in the WTO. Since 2004, India has also been trying to introduce a Seed Act which would require farmers to register their own seeds and take licenses. This in effect would force farmers from using their indigenous seed varieties. By creating a Seed Satyagraha - a non-cooperation movement in Gandhi's footsteps, handing over hundreds of thousands of signatures to the prime minister, and working with parliament - we have so far prevented the Seed Law from being introduced.

India has signed a US-India Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture, with Monsanto on the Board. Individual states are also being pressured to sign agreements with Monsanto. One example is the Monsanto-Rajasthan Memorandum of Understanding, under which Monsanto would get intellectual property rights to all genetic resources, and to carry out research on indigenous seeds. It took a campaign by Navdanya and a "Monsanto Quit India" Bija Yatra ["seed pilgrimage"] to force the government of Rajasthan to cancel the MOU.

This asymmetric pressure of Monsanto on the US government, and the joint pressure of both on the governments across the world, is a major threat to the future of seeds, the future of food and the future of democracy.

Check out some of Dr Vandana Shiva's titles, available from Zed Books such as Soil Not Oil and Earth Democracy

BBC: Greece bailout: Coalition 'to finalise' austerity deal

2012-02-08T13:20:00.000Z

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is due to meet coalition parties in an attempt to seal an austerity agreement to secure a new EU/IMF bailout.

The three parties were handed the draft after final touches were agreed between the PM and EU, ECB and IMF officials.

The accord is likely to include a 20% minimum wage reduction, pension cuts and 15,000 civil service lay-offs.

Public transport came to a standstill on Tuesday as an estimated 20,000 people protested against the cuts.

At one point a German flag was set alight outside parliament.

The meeting with party leaders was postponed for a few hours on Wednesday - it had already been put back twice before, because they were yet to see the document.

Mr Papademos held talks late on Tuesday night with representatives from the troika - the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.

A meeting that had already been delayed on Monday night was postponed again on Tuesday evening as the heads of the three coalition parties said they had not seen the document outlining the austerity deal.

The 50-page text was eventually given to officials from Pasok, New Democracy and the far-right Laos party on Wednesday morning, reports said.

The main issue for the coalition was said to be plans to reduce monthly pensions from 360 euros.

If the parties give the text their "agreement in principle" it will then be put before the Greek parliament.

As part of Greece's new 130bn euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout deal, Mr Papademos and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos have also been engaged in a separate strand of negotiations with private creditors over a write-off of up to 70% of the value of the money owed by the Greek government.

On Tuesday night, a spokesman for the International Institute of Finance (IIF) which is negotiating on behalf of the private creditors said the talks had been constructive and its three officials were returning to Paris for further consultations.

For more information on the current economic crisis, check out The Global Minotaur, available from Zed Books

The Guardian: Colombia's Nukak Maku tribe faces extinction

2012-02-07T14:48:00.001Z

Race is on to halt nomadic Amazonian community's rapid population decline as malnutrition and illness take hold.

Restrictions on Colombia's indigenous Nukak Maku tribe's ability to roam leaves them threatened with extinction.

Link to this video

Only a decade ago, the Nukak Maku, a Colombian indigenous community, lived a peaceful life disconnected from the modern world.

Nomadic hunter-gatherers, they roamed a chunk of the Amazon three times the size of London, spending days trekking to one corner just to fish, then weeks to another to hunt.

Now driven out of their territory by the Farc left-wing guerillas, the tribe occupies a shabby glade half the size of a football field on the outskirts of a frontier town, San José del Guaviare.

"We fled day and night through the jungle," a young woman, Monica, says. "Finally we arrived in this place, no one is happy here."

The Nukak say their new home is poor for hunting and fishing. Local farmers get angry when they hunt in the forests.

To make up for the loss of food, Acción Social, the government's aid organisation, delivers rations. However, the women say it is not sufficient. "They often forget to bring us the rations, and sometimes it is not enough," says Sandra, a young Nukak mother. "We do not like some of the things they give us, our bodies are not used to it."

The change in diet has harmed the Nukaks' health. Many of the children and adults are visibly malnourished. At the time of this reporter's visit, Sandra's daughter, Kelly, was in hospital with severe malnutrition. "She is a one-year-old, but has the body of a six-month-old baby," says Luza Marina, who is in charge of monitoring the Nukak community's health.

The community suffers from skin infections, respiratory diseases, diarrhoea and other common illnesses. "We never had these diseases before," says Monica. As a result of daily difficulties and the inability to hunt, many are depressed and have other mental health problems.

Since the Nukak were first "contacted" in 1988, the illnesses of the modern world have had devastating effects. Anthropologists estimate they used to number more than 2,000 but the population has fallen to fewer than 600, bringing fears of extinction.

"For thousands of years the Nukak lived peacefully in their forest. Then the white man arrived. In the 20-odd years since, half their population has been wiped out, their territory has been invaded, and they've been driven out of the forest," says Stephen Corry, director of Survival International in the UK.

"There's little doubt that if the authorities allow this to continue, the Nukak stand little chance of survival."

Another concern is the Nukak's loss of culture. Since leaving the jungle, they have almost lost their traditional ways. Missionaries have taught them to wear clothes and eat modern food.
Whereas previously they had no sense of money, the Nukak people now spend their days begging in the town.

"It is very sad to see our people change their ways so much," says Fellipe, a man in his 50s. "Now I'm not sure we could even survive in the jungle, it feels like we are doomed to the modern world."
Responding to the threatened extinction of indigenous communities such as the Nukak, and the nearby Jiw and Sicuani, the Colombian government has started a national safeguard plan. This aims to legally enforce protecting these communities. Few of the Nukak have faith in the government, and many are concerned it is already too late.

"The idea is to guarantee their survival," says Javier Sanchez, who is coordinating the plan. "If the state does not act quickly, they will be responsible for the disappearing of an indigenous community in our country."

In the meantime, the Nukak continue to languish in hammocks, longing to return to their nomadic life.

"If we stay here much longer, our people will completely lose our ways, and we will just die off, far from the land where we belong," says Monica.

William Lloyd-George guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 February 2012 18.30 GMT

Read more on this subject in The Politics of Indigeneity

Yanis Varoufakis' Blog: Reporting the Eurozone’s Crisis: Lessons from the Greek Front (*)

2012-02-07T12:49:00.001Z

Over the past two years, the economic crisis that has engulfed Greece has also thrust me in front of the microphones and note pads of the myriad journalists who descended upon Athens to report on the unfolding drama. In this sense, I have not only been witnessing the evolution of Greece’s (and the eurozone’s) meltdown but also the struggle of the world’s media to make sense of it. In this article I summarise what I think are three important lessons to be drawn from this experience on behalf of journalists attempting to strike the difficult balance between (a) the need to produce stories that resonate with their editors, readers, audiences, viewers and (b) the almost infinite complexity of the underlying story. The three lessons that I want to focus on I shall refer to, respectively, as the error of generalisation, the fallacy of aggregation, and the perils of compartmentalisation.

The error of generalisation

The Crash of 1929, and the subsequent Great Depression, ought to have taught us an important lesson: that a cascade of both private and public bankruptcies (which begins with the collapse of the big banks, then spreads to the public debt of the weaker nations and, later, infects the real economy with the virus of recession) ends up not only threatening the common currency of the era (the Gold Standard in 1929, the euro today) but also engendering a breakdown of the vision of shared prosperity. In the absence of some supra-national Leviathan (like the one Keynes proposed in 1944) to “keep us all in awe”, and thus maintain cross border cooperation in the aftermath of a crisis, a Hobbesian war of “all against all” looms.

The war of words starts the moment we utter sentences beginning with “The Greeks do this” or “The Germans think that”. In 1929, that war of words, the ‘blame game’ if you want, led to another type of war which, paradoxically, killed millions and the crisis itself. One might have hoped that, this time around, we will have learnt our lesson. For while the armoured brigades have not moved (and will hopefully remain in their barracks), the war of words is now alive and well in Germany and in Greece, in the Netherlands and in Spain, in Austria and in Ireland.

Our very own generation’s 1929, the Credit Crunch of 2008 and the subsequent Great Recession, has occasioned much talk in Europe about The Germans, The Greeks, The British even (especially after David Cameron decided to break ranks with the European Union on the issue of the recent Treaty changes). Our collective task, and in particular that of enlightened journalists, is to shout from the rooftops that there is no such thing as The Greeks or The Germans or, for that matter, The Brits. We are all individuals, as Brian famously struggled to convince his self appointed disciples. And we have more diversity among our people, both in terms of views and character, than we have differences across our nations.

So, when reporting from the frontlines of the economic collapse, journalists have a duty to highlight the breadth of opinion within Greece, within Germany, within Britain, rather than gloss over that diversity opting instead for the comforting, yet potentially destructive, familiarity of national stereotypes. Maintaining a healthy resistance to generalisation is not only the journalist’s humanist duty but, also, a prerequisite for accurate reporting of the crisis’ causes.

Take, once again, the case of Greece. Journalists need metaphors with which to help their audience get a handle on an economic collapse, its causes and nature. One such allegory that has been employed extensively in order to narrate the eurozone’s drama is Aesop’s fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper. The Germanic Ant is pitted against the Greek Grasshopper in the context of a morality tale that combines northern industry, southern sloth and some flimsy economic analysis of the monetary dislocation that follows.

The trouble with metaphors of this sort is that they are almost irresistible. So, journalists hard pressed to produce a story that resonates nicely with their constituency’s prejudices end up slavishly reproducing the metaphor’s logic; e.g. Germans are portrayed as hard workers that must bail out the spendthrift Greeks, just like the ants etc. etc. It is as if, the moment the metaphor was chosen, the story had already been written up with no serious thought given to its analytic value.

Now, I am all for metaphors. There is nothing like them for conveying complex stories to a readership, or an audience, that allocates a severely limited amount of time to them. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon journalists to use the metaphor to approach reality, as opposed to being ‘used’ by their own metaphor in order, effectively, to distort reality. To succeed in this task, journalists must bend their chosen metaphor to the demands of truth-telling. Resisting the lure of generalisation is essential.

In the case examined here, of Greece and Germany, the fact is that the ants and the grasshoppers are distributed across the division separating surplus from deficit eurozone nations. Once we recognise that both Germany and Greece, indeed the whole of the eurozone, contain neglected ants and over-pampered grasshoppers, we suddenly have the makings of a more nuanced story. One that allows us to ask probing questions about the way in which both Germany’s and Greece’s hard working ants feel disgruntled and shortchanged by the Greek and German grasshoppers which, during the ‘good’ times lived parasitically off them while now, during the ‘lean years’, once more, they are again demanding, from the ants, bail out money and higher taxes.

In short, metaphors are crucial for storytelling and analytical purposes. But we must hone them in a manner that helps, rather than hinders, our grasp of the underlying causes. And this means escaping the error of generalisation.

The Fallacy of Aggregation

When visiting a country in economic meltdown (Greece being a useful case in point) it is important to come equipped with a simple, yet counter-intuitive, insight: Recipes for tackling debt do not add up! By this I mean that journalists must always interrogate their instinctual views on the causes of the crisis that they are covering and, in particular, of what ‘common sense’ dictates as the remedy.

For example, what recipe does common sense recommend for getting out of financial trouble as a person, a family, a firm? The answer surely is to lower your expenses in order to rein in the red ink on your balance sheet. And to work harder and more intelligently. However, when this recipe is taken to a higher level of aggregation, it simply does not add up. To see this, suppose that, in a bid to reduce our individual and collective debt during a crisis (what financial economists refer to as deleveraging), each one of us follows this same recipe and at the same time. The result, I submit to you, may be quite the opposite of that intended. Indeed, aggregate real debt may rise!

To see why these individual recipes do not add up to a collectively efficacious strategy, consider the great difference between your family (or firm) and the economy at large. In the case of your family, if your income has declined, and you are facing a shortfall at the end of each month, cutting down on expenses is a sensible course of action for one simple reason: Your income is independent of your expenses. For instance, if you do not eat out tonight (and, instead, cook at home), your income has not suffered and, as you have reduced your expenses, your balance is healthier.

In sharp contrast, an aggregate economy’s income is not independent of its expenditure. Indeed, the two are one and the same thing! (The nation’s aggregate income equals exactly its aggregate expenditure.) To see why this matters, suppose that the whole country is tightening its proverbial belt, with families and firms ‘deleveraging’ at once. Private expenditure will be, naturally, falling (in aggregate). Now if, on top of that, the government also reduces its expenditure (in an effort to shrink its deficits), then the sum of private and public expenditure will decline. But what is that sum equal to? The answer is: National income! As national income shrinks, the state’s tax revenue falls, families have less money to pay down debt, and the nation’s overall capacity to repay its debts diminishes. Thus, we all fall collectively into the trap of ‘common sense’; of the fallacy of aggregation; of mistakenly thinking that a recipe which is good for families and firms must be good for an indebted country in aggregate.

For many months, since the eruption of the Greek debt saga, I was struggling to put this simple point across to the many journalists that I met. It was hard work. The fallacy of aggregation was deeply entrenched in their minds. When asking me questions about Greece’s ‘bail out’ loans, and the importance of the austerity conditions that were attached to these loans, my claim that the whole idea was flawed did not resonate with them. However hard I tried to explain the flawed logic, the journalists seemed wedded to the idea that when a country like Greece has a large deficit, and a huge debt, a substantial reduction in government spending, and a hike in taxation, must be the answer.

Months later, when the government spending cut backs and the tax rises caused the recession to deepen and the debt-to-national income ratio to balloon, I noticed that the mood amongst journalists changed. Alas, in the meantime, they had authored piece upon piece that misinformed their readers and misled their audiences.

With this in mind, and as the crisis continues to weave its poisonous web across countries and sectors, I hope that journalists will weave into their reporting a modicum of doubt that economic ‘recipes’ add up the way that ‘conventional wisdom’ has it.

The perils of compartmentalisation

During my ‘tenure’ as frequent interlocutor of the international press corps ‘flying by’ Athens, I noticed an interesting division of labour. Reporters and television or radio crews would fall in three more or less distinct categories: The hard news crew, the background briefing mission and, less frequently, the human interest angle.

The hard news folks’ approach was of the ‘hardnosed’, quick off the mark, no nonsense type. They wanted the ‘facts’ and the figures, the insider information, the instant prediction of what-the-government-would-do or the how-the-market-would-move kind of response. The background briefing lot were more relaxed, operated under longer deadlines and, thus, had the time and space to ask similar questions but in a manner that allowed us, the interviewees, more room to unravel some narrative on the background and the unseen aspects of the story. Lastly, journalists working on human interest pieces had no time for the ‘causes’ of the economic crises, next to no interest for the underlying tectonic plates whose movements caused ruptures in the social economy. What they sought out was tales of woe, images of suffering, sounds of desperation; the raw materials that would allow them to piece together some short piece that would, I suspect, play the role of balancing out the harshness of the facts and figures in some preceding report by one of the other crews.

This compartmentalisation of the storyline of an economic meltdown into three distinct types of report causes two failures: First, it weakens the journalist’s own analytical capacity to make sense of the crisis. Secondly, it diminishes the value of each of its parts. Let me explain both allegations in the context of the eurozone debacle. Any tale of the trials and tribulations of, say, a Greek family that lacks an analytical connection between their suffering and the anguish of an equivalent German family (whose living standards have been falling less but for much longer) will surely fail to account (as well as it might have) for both: (a) the depth of ill feeling that Greek and German families experience and (b) the crisis’ causes. Put simply, when the hardnosed analysis is kept separate from the human interest angle, then the analysis turns ‘soft-nosed’ and the human interest story swaps humanism for melodrama.

Epilogue

Language and its love affair with metaphor often lures us into the trap of generalising that which is best left un-generalised. Our tongue is prone to talking about a ‘foreign’ people as if capable of having a single character whose moral defects can explain their plight; as if, for instance, Margaret Thatcher and Harold Pinter were collapsible into one character whose failing might explain Britain’s economic woes. Then, as if that were not enough, our mind gives the resulting misunderstanding another twirl by moving in the opposite direction, confusing the particular with the general, e.g. assuming that what is prudent for one family must be prudent for an economy. Lastly, following a long standing error in the Western mindset, we are convinced that economic and financial ‘facts’ are sentiment-free zones.

These three failures come natural to us when we fly into a country that has suddenly melted down for the purposes of preparing, within tight constraints, a piece of journalism on what is happening, why it happened and how it feels to be caught up in it. They must be resisted. My argument has been that journalists will throw much more useful light on an economic crisis unfolding in a foreign land if they manage to avoid the error of generalisation, the fallacy of aggregation, and the perils of compartmentalisation.

(*) An edited version of this article will appear in the March (2012) issue of the British Journalism Review. My thanks to the BJR for commissioning the paper.

Check out the rest of Yanis Varoufakis' Blog here "Thoughts for the Post-2008 World"

Deutsche Welles.de: Is Greece still viable?

2012-02-07T12:43:00.001Z

As Greece grapples with debts and deadlines, Yanis Varoufakis, writing for DW's Transatlantic Voices column, argues that the country has been skirting the edge of a debt crisis since its inception.

Yanis Varoufakis is Director of Political Economy at the Department of Economic Sciences, Faculty of Law, Politics and Economics at the University of Athens.

"Perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand."

Most Greeks, deep down, know that John Maynard Keynes was right. Our current destitution and indignity are the natural repercussions of our own past errors of commission and fallacies of omission.

Modern Greece has been skirting the edge of a debt crisis since its inception. After its mini postwar industrial revolution unravelled during the 1970s, it kept pulling back from the abyss through frequent devaluations and bursts of austerity. Entry into the eurozone removed the main instrument of containment in exchange for the empty promise of some alternative shock absorbing mechanism.

For almost a decade after the euro's birth, Northern European commercial capital kept flowing into countries like Greece in search of returns higher than those the stagnant core economies could deliver. A semblance of convergence was thus founded on a series of bubbles that kept the underlying structural imbalances well hidden. In countries like Ireland, the bubble inflated within the private sector (with the connivance of the state). In Greece, the same bubble sprang up within the state sector (aided and abetted by the developers and the private banks).

From Crash to Bailout to a festering wound

Once the bubbles started bursting (first in Wall Street and Europe's larger banks, then in Dubai, later in Greece and, finally, in the rest of the periphery), a postmodern 1930s was upon us. Just like in 1929, the Crash of 2008 sparked off:

a) the unravelling of the common currency of the era (the Gold Standard then, the euro today),

b) the implosion of the deficit countries (which were forced to shoulder the burden of adjustment), and

c) recessionary winds that blew across the world.

While these sinister developments were universal in scope, the question on everyone's lips remains: Is Greece viable? Do the Greeks believe it to be? Why are the targets set by the troika never met?

I am very much afraid that these are the wrong questions. It is not a question of whether Greece can be viable within the eurozone but whether the eurozone, as currently constructed, is viable with or without Greece. Put, differently, the question those outside of Greece need to ask is: Why are we still talking about Greece, two long years after its implosion?

Of course the reason is that the expensive remedies applied to the festering wound that is Greece are worsening, rather than improving, the infection. One explanation is that Greece was a recalcitrant patient who refused to take the medicine as prescribed. There is a large element of truth here. However, the Greek state's incompetence at introducing the agreed reforms is preventing us from seeing the deeper cause: the way that the eurozone bound together the fates of our peoples by means of an edifice that (a) magnified the underlying imbalances and (b) could not absorb a shock like that of the financial meltdown of 2008.

When the eurozone's weakest link snapped, its government added to the country's past mistakes another grave error of commission. It denied its bankruptcy and sought loans under conditions that were impossible to meet. In Keynes' words:

"Greece's insincere acceptance… of impossible conditions which it was not intended to carry out made Greece almost as guilty to accept what she could not fulfil as the European Union to impose what they were not entitled to exact."

Naturally, these are not Keynes' precise words. But they are close. All I had to do to produce the above ‘quotation' was to substitute ‘Greece' for ‘Germany' and ‘European Union' for ‘Allies.'

While pondering the implosion of Greece's social economy, Keynes' insights regarding the great paradox that was the Versailles Treaty are quite instructive. Just like Germany in 1920, so too Greece in May 2010 grudgingly accepted its ‘punishment' in the form of a ‘treaty' that placed impossible demands upon it. And just like the Allies were to discover in the 1920s, the imposition of these conditions not only depleted the capacity for recovery of the weak, defeated, demoralised nation but, alas, it is proving a constant drain and torment for Europe's strong nations.

Now what?

To err twice in two years is imprudent. The second bailout package, comprising more loans and deeper austerity, together with the fraudulent ‘voluntary' haircut negotiations, must be set aside. Until a rational plan is in place that renders both Greece and the rest of the eurozone viable, the Greek state must spend not a euro more than it takes in taxes, while all loan repayments are suspended. An end must be put to the scandal of asking German taxpayers, in the name of ‘solidarity', to guarantee loans that the Greek state passes on to banks already living off the kindness of the ECB and the taxpayers.

As for Germany, it must decide swiftly between disintegrating the eurozone and reinforcing it by adding to our monetary union that which has been missing from the outset: a mechanism for shifting surpluses to the deficit regions in the form of productive investments (as opposed to handouts or loans). Turning failed states like Greece into sundrenched wastelands within the eurozone, and forcing the rest of the currency area into a debt-deflationary spiral, is a most efficient way of undermining the long term viability of Europe's core. Even if one thinks that Greece would be getting its just deserts, do the hard-working Germans deserve to be quickmarched in that direction? I do not believe they do.

Check out Yanis Varoufakis' blog to keep up with his latest analysis of the current global economic crisis.

Also, for more information on this topic, read The Global Minotaur available from Zed Books

All Africa: Somalia: Getting Country Wrong - a History of International Misreading

2012-02-07T11:57:00.000Z

Writing a book about Somalia has become a cotton industry of late. Countless pundits with little or no experience of the country try to reduce its extraordinarily intricate conflict to images of destruction, decay and death.

But Mary Harper's book, "Getting Somalia Wrong: faith, war and hope in a shattered state" is a rare account of exceptional intellect, combining stellar reporting with sharp analysis. Well-organised and succinct, the book simplifies some of the most complex and primordial issues facing Somalia, such as the role of clans in a modern nation state. It also demystifies the equally complex identity of Somalis - an amalgamation of lineage-based clans with Islamic and African roots.

Living up to its title, Harper's book shows how (and why) the international community has misread the situation in Somalia over the past 20 years. Harper recounts the U.S. and UN intervention in the early 1990s, which ended in the now infamous "Black Hawk Down" episode, where 18 members of the American Special Forces (and countless Somalis) died in an epic battle across the dusty streets of Mogadishu.

"[this] was probably the most dramatic example of getting Somalia wrong," Harper writes. But, in fact, I think the 1993 events were just the first example of the book's title. More than 10 years later, Washington would again misdiagnose Somali conundrums, with potentially disastrous effect.

Harper correctly observers that the U.S. made another ill-judged intervention in Somalia in 2006, when it helped organize some of the most notorious warlords into an anti-terrorism coalition. The CIA was bankrolling the Mogadishu-based alliance until a popular revolt backed a loose union of Islamic courts to oust the warlords. But instead of learning from its mistakes, Harper notes that Washington went into an anti-terrorism overdrive by essentially outsourcing a war to Ethiopia. Addis Ababa "would carry out the dirty work" of the U.S., writes Harper, and soundly crush the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

Harper's book details how the defeat of the UIC had the polar opposite effect: al-Shabaab, a more militant faction within the UIC, would exploit the Ethiopian intervention to its advantage and emerge as a real threat to the U.S. and its allies. The group now controls nearly half of Somalia, and swears allegiance to al-Qaeda.

Harper traces "violent political Islam" to the "Mad Mullah," the 19th century freedom fighter whose lacerating poetry galvanized the nation to fight against the British Empire. Many Somalis would however find Harper's portrayal of Sayyid Muhammad Abdulle Hassan as a "violent" Islamist profoundly injuring. In the eyes of the vast majority of Somalis, he's the foremost hero of the people. To frame him any less would conjure up a colonialist mentality.

In her book, Harper goes into great lengths to contextualize the loaded term "failed state," which is casually applied to Somalia in the news media and popular culture. The absence of central authority since 1991, she writes, is not an appropriate yardstick to measure Somalia. To this incredibly clannish society, Harper argues that the notions of 'state' and 'failure' are western misfits. "It would therefore be misleading to describe Somalia as ever having a stable, fully-functioning nation state, democratic or otherwise," she writes.

That assertion is contentious. The academic Ali Mizrui, who is widely cited in Harper's book, says that 1960s Somalia was the closest thing that Africa had to modern day stable and democratic state.

Unlike your average journalist, whose description of Somalia is the fait accompli gloom and doom, Harper goes out of her way to report on the vibrant civil society and business community in the country. She documents successful entrepreneurs who have helped Somalia become one of the most technologically advanced countries on the continent.

Politically, Harper also spends a great deal of her book decoupling Mogadishu, the capital city - and consistently the most chaotic corner since 1991 - from the rest of the country. She points out that clan-based polities in the northwest (Somaliland) and northeast (Puntland), among others, are self-governing with a remarkable degree of success in terms of local governance.

Somaliland, the former British protectorate, features significantly in Harpers book. She shows how this island of calm in an ocean of chaos has managed to strike a balance between traditional leadership (Guurti) and modern state systems. "Somaliland held elections that are far better than many African countries," she correctly observes. Harper criticises the international community for ignoring these local stability initiatives by overemphasizing the importance of that most evasive of Somali institution - 'central government. To this end, Harper suggests some type of "federalism" for Somalia, allowing local communities to exert greater control over local governance.

While Harper is correct to lash out at the international community's idiosyncratic approach to Somalia, she hasn't sufficiently explained the 'federalism' she casually refers to. Flirting with the word is deeply troubling to many Somalis who feel that the whole notion is being foisted onto them by neighboring countries, chiefly Ethiopia, which is a historical enemy. Put simply, Somalia does not have the characteristics of a federal state, such the U.S., Russia or Nigeria. Somalia is figuratively small and it's too homogeneous to federalize. A decentralized state, much like the UK, is more apt.

In a nutshell, Harper's book is one of the most comprehensive accounts written about Somalia in recent years. The author neatly packs so much information into a relatively small book. It's a refreshing take on what is a deeply complex conflict.

Abdi Aynte is a journalist at Al Jazeera English

To read Getting Somalia Wrong?, check out Zed Books

Getting Somalia Wrong Book Launch TONIGHT!

FRONTLINE CLUB: Getting Somalia Wrong

2012-02-07T10:31:00.001Z

http://www.royalafricansociety.org/events/details/1137-getting-somalia-wrong-faith-war-and-hope-in-a-shattered-state.html

Next week I'm planning to attend this event at the Royal African Society, where BBC journalist Mary Harper will be launching her new book 'Getting Somalia Wrong'. Mary has a long history of association with Somalia, she's travelled there many times. One of her best stories came about when she was trying to get through to Somali pirates on her mobile phone; she gave up because they didn't answer, and then gave the phone to her daughter. When it rang her daughter answered and said 'mummy it's the pirates on the phone'; a story immortalised on the BBC's From Our Own Correspondent.

I'm looking forward to reading the book as I'm sure Mary's viewpoint will be different to some of the other experts who've written about it over the years. She's spent a lot of time talking to Somalis and really trying to understand what's going on there. Great that Zed Books exists so that these less well-known topics can be written about.

By Celeste Hicks

on February 2, 2012 2:09 PM

Independant Voice: EthioSun: Getting Somalia Wrong? – Signs of wish in a cracked state

2012-02-07T10:28:00.000Z

It’s always been tough to find a horizon for examining Somalia. It has one of a many ethnically homogenous populations in Africa – Somalis share a same language, culture, sacrament and house structure – nonetheless a republic seems constantly riven by conflict. Somalia has prolonged been noticed in a West as a basket box state in a basket box continent, as assent discussion after assent discussion and unfamiliar interventions came and went while house fighting continued. Maybe a answer is embankment your frameworks and review Mary Harper’s new book on Somalia.

Her informed, keen and penetrable book could not be entrance out during a some-more good time, with a republic experiencing a vital Kenyan troops intrusion and a stability African Union troops goal in support of a exposed and substantially unviable government. It’s a work that demonstrates a significance of intent though usually broadcasting and clear, uncluttered suspicion voiced simply though effectively.

Harper’s research supports a evidence done by Richard Dowden (African Arguments, 20 Ooctober 2011) about not forcing statehood on Somalia. He righteously points out that “Strong centralized states are a bequest of colonial rulers and unsurprisingly a heir governments have kept it that way.” This has been attempted in Somalia and failed. If a African Union and a West, aroused of a Somalia though a clever centralized authority, try to pound not usually a Islamists like Al Shabaab, though also other unconstrained army in sequence to artificially say in energy an unrepresentative and mostly neglected executive government, they will usually replicate a errors of a past and lengthen conflict. Centralized management is not partial of Somali domestic enlightenment – usually a Islamic courts transformation had any genuine success with unification. This was a totally Somali answer to a problems, though one that did not greatfully a United States or Ethiopia and so was swept divided by outward intervention.

All this is clearly accepted by Harper, a publisher with a BBC African Service for some-more than 20 years and one who had reported from Somalia and frequently visited a republic given 1991. Above all in her work she tries and succeeds in conveying understanding, and where bargain is formidable or impossible, to communicate because this is so.

Harper describes a catastrophic images that quarrel any other to get on TV screens or journal pages on a few and fundamentally sensationalized occasions when events in Somalia are reported – drug-crazed teenagers with guns, cut-down Land cruisers with weaponry mounted on a back, pirates, fundamental women and children. She righteously says of Somalia that ‘these images act as barriers to other ways of saying Somalia”. They browbeat a news to a ostracism of all others representations of Somalia or Somalis, generally a signs that amid a dispute and crisis, Somalis are themselves inventing choice mercantile and domestic systems and effective presence strategies

Mary Harper is a BBC publisher specializing in Africa.

Somalia is a ultimate image, for many, of a unsuccessful state. It has seen roughly consistent dispute given a overpower of Siad Barre in 1991. It has also suffered a array of ill-conceived, feeble executed and exceedingly deleterious unfamiliar interventions – from a catastrophic US involvement finale after a now barbarous Black Hawk Down episode, around a US-backed Ethiopian advance to overpower a Union of Islamic Courts, to a unconstrained and mostly purposeless assent conferences hold in plush hotels around East Africa.

These events are described clearly in their historical, domestic and general contexts and uncover how a miss of bargain of Somalia, a history, enlightenment and domestic growth led to attempts to force change that were cursed from a start as they worked opposite existence – ‘Outsiders tend to find it a tough place to understand, and there is generally a far-reaching opening between a several attempts done to deliver solutions to a problems and a existence lived by a population’.

This opening in bargain is not usually a European or American phenomenon. Somalia differs hugely in a culture, normal structures, economy and spontaneous political/social institutions from many of Africa. The clan-based rural complement that encompasses a economic, amicable and domestic spheres creates Somalia a bad sourroundings for centralised supervision on a Western or hybrid Western/African pattern.

Siad Barre unsuccessful to forcibly centralize a state. Peace conferences formed on a appearance of elites distanced from a grassroots, perplexing to produce out Western-backed deals involving centralised transitory governments have constructed diseased regimes that have not usually unsuccessful to finish dispute though have all too mostly worsened it. These attempts are described, picked detached and roundly and cogently criticised by a author, as is a bent to perspective Somalia by a prism of a ‘War on Terror’.

For me, a many profitable territory in what is a well-written and really well-informed study, is that traffic with Somaliland and a slow, clever and, above all, Somali-generated swell from a break-away state raid by competing clans or movements to one of a many fast and resourceful polities in Africa. Denied general recognition, though also mostly giveaway of outward interference, Somaliland has grown a operative economy and an inland hybrid complement of deputy supervision that involves though doesn’t usually centre on a clans and that is increasingly accountable – ‘Because Western models of peace-making and state-building have not been imposed from a outside, Somaliland has in many ways saved itself from a predestine of Somalia. The instance of Somaliland has demonstrated that when left to themselves, Somalis can form a viable republic state’.

This is a book that contingency be review by those who wish to know Somalia. It is intent though offset and really transparent in a probable faith that ‘until Somalia is some-more clearly accepted and a opposite proceed is found, it will continue to perplex, alarm and bluster a general community, and it will be really formidable to find a proceed brazen for a opposite that works for a Somalis themselves and for a outward world.’ And, as Harper righteously concludes, a universe needs to be some-more creative, like a Somalis themselves, in a exchange with a republic and ‘recognize that Somalis can be really good during doing things for themselves’.

Keith Somerville runs his possess website Africa, News and Analysis –www.africajournalismtheworld.com – and teaches in a Politics and International Relations Department during a University of Kent, Canterbury. K.Somerville@kent.ac.uk

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By Qalinle Hussein

Africa Report: The dangers of carving up Somalia

2012-02-06T14:27:00.003Z

Here is an unprecedented build-up of military force in Somalia. African Union peacekeepers are set to double to more than 17,000 while Kenya and Ethiopia have launched their own invasions. Soldiers from the USA, Britain and France are targeting insurgents with foreign terrorist links. This military influx could prove counter-productive, given the lack of resources for stabilising local politics and strengthening the economy .

 Charming and jovial, Tanzanian diplomat Augustine Mahiga worked the room hard as he talked about tangible progress in Somalia to an array of stern faces at the African Union's (AU) Peace and Security Council on 5 January in Addis Ababa.

"This is the moment when years of investment in Somalia could finally pay off if we stay the course and move forward together," Mahiga intoned in his role as the UN secretary general's special representative to Somalia.

 It was a hard sell convincing fellow diplomats about progress in Somalia after another year of famine, piracy, fist fights in parliament and battles with jihadist militias.

The irrepressible Mahiga wants to show that he believes that the progress is real by moving his UN office to Mogadishu following an offensive by the AU troops that drove the Islamist Al-Shabaab militia out of the capital last year.

  THE AU AND MAHIGA have asked the UN Security Council to approve funding to add 5,700 troops to the current total of 9,500.

That will add to what has become a multi-million-dollar business in pacifying, or at least neutralising, Somalia.

African defence officials and private military consultants are in hot pursuit of funding from the UN and intervening governments for operations and procurement.

Governments in the region earn $1,000 for each peacekeeper per month, and it also builds up their armies' combat experience.

 With anti-pirate flotillas from more than 24 countries patrolling the Gulf of Aden, and French and United States forces monitoring terrorist targets from Djibouti (and occasionally sending special forces into Mogadishu on covert operations), there is an unprecedented build-up of military force in and around Somalia.

There is quieter talk of the mineral and fishing resources off the longest coastline of any African state.

 This new militarisation could result in political progress, according to the executive secretary of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development.

Kenya's Mahboub Maalim told The Africa Report: "Somalia is closer to being stabilised than at any other time.

It is mostly due to the lifting of the UN Security Council resolution limiting border countries from intervening in Somalia."

That change by the UN has legitimised the operations by Kenyan and Ethiopian troops over the past few months.

The Kenyan government wants to join the AU mission so its troops can be eligible for funding from the UN.

 For Maalim, the next critical stage in Somalia will be political: "There will be some far-reaching changes. Elections must be held by the end of August. A new government will be formed, and one that hopefully comes without the baggage of the current one."

 This is where Somalia's divided political class is meant to work with African governments and Mahiga's UN office.

Few Somalis outside the partisan political groupings have much of a voice: civic organisations have taken a terrible hit in the past two decades.

Some UN officials are now trying to reinvigorate the reconciliation strategy launched by veteran Algerian diplomat Mohamed Sahnoun that worked with clan organisations, the foundation of Somali society.

 President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu is meant to hand over power in August when a new constitution based on the principle of decentralisation comes into force.

The transitional parliament, which has voted itself a three-year extension, will be central to any transition: its members want to push out Sheikh Sharif but cannot agree on a replacement.

 For Simon Mulongo, former director of the Eastern Africa Standby Brigade and now a Ugandan MP, there is a clear imperative for regional states to intervene: "Somalia represents a black spot, an ungoverned space, and therefore precipitates concerns of organised crime, bandit economies, etc., which affect the region directly and indirectly ... This invites those affected to take charge of the situation ... especially when they have Somali elements that also operate in their countries."

  al-Shabab organised a bomb attack in Kampala in July 2010, so Mulongo insists that the Ugandan government has vital security interests there: "Somalia is not just a problem for Somalia alone.

Terror groups operating in the region are creating relationships. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) have links with groups also operating in Somalia.

Jamil Mukulu, the ADF leader, trained in the Middle East and has organised some of his elements to be linked with some of the groups.

The ADF is based in the western slopes of the Rwenzori and western Uganda."

An intelligence source said Britain has growing concern about Somali-linked terrorists

 The headline news is that Somalia – whether its rebel groups are deploying terrorist militias across Africa and Europe or sending daring pirates to the Gulf of Aden, through which half the world's container traffic passes – is a global threat.

Little attention is paid to the harsh living conditions that most Somalis have to endure or to the breakdown of health and education services.

It took another famine last year, which put five million Somali lives at risk, to take the world's focus away temporarily from the outside obsessions of piracy and terrorism.

 That explains some of the scepticism about British Prime Minister David Cameron's plan for a conference in London on 23 February "to deliver a new international approach to Somalia."

In November, Cameron listed the reasons for calling the meeting: "Protecting merchant ships passing through the Gulf of Aden, tackling pirates, pressuring the extremists, supporting countries in the region and addressing the causes of conflict and instability in Somalia."

 A European diplomat knowledgeable about the preparations plays down expectations: "We'll see a call for stronger support for the AU and the UN. There may be some changes in the international management of diplomacy on Somalia. They want to find a way to give Turkey and Qatar bigger roles, but we're not expecting any policy breakthroughs."

The tight timetable would preclude wider consultation or much innovative thinking, he argues.  A London-based intelligence source added that Britain has growing concern about Somali-linked terror groups.

After Al Qaeda operative Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was killed in fighting in south-central Somalia in June 2011, files were found on his computer detailing plans for attacks on the 2012 Olympics and other targets in London.

Jermaine Grant, a Briton also known as Ali Mohammed Ibrahim, was arrested in Mombasa in early January and charged with possession of explosives.

Police say he was one of the 200 or so foreign fighters working with Al-Shabaab, of whom about 50 are said to have British passports.  

Whatever the agenda for the conference, Cameron's team has drawn up an impressive guest list including Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

  AL-SHABAAB LEADERS Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad and Hassan Dahir Aweys, both under UN sanctions, are not invited even though their organisation will be under discussion.

Some African diplomats will urge talks with what they see as a more tractable faction of Al-Shabaab under Mukhtar Robow, while others argue that AU troops must press home their military advantage before opening talks.

 Experts such as BBC journalist Mary Harper warn that "one of the biggest failures of policy towards Somalia has been the fixation with lengthy and expensive internationally sponsored peace conferences."

 In her new book Getting Somalia Wrong, Harper argues that these conferences "have produced a succession of weak transitional governments [which] have paid lip service to federalism but have tended to be highly centralised. They lack popular legitimacy because Somalis tend to see them as foreign creations."

 A better policy course, she says, would be to focus on the more stable regions and administrations such as Puntland and Somaliland.

Belatedly, the US and Britain have backed those strategies, speaking of a "dual track" approach which means recognising the Mogadishu government but building up independent relationships with the self-governing areas.

 Working with other semi-autonomous areas such as Galmudug, Ximan and Xeeb may be more problematic, although there are signs that UN and AU officials are moving in that direction.

Attempts by governments such as Ethiopia and Uganda to back self-governing areas are often dismissed by Somalis as attempts to carve up the country.

 Uganda's Mulongo describes a web of competing interests among the states intervening in Somalia: "For Ethiopia, it is about control of the sea."

Ethiopia has been landlocked since Eritrea's independence in 1991. According to Mulongo, Eritrea's President Isaias Afewerki believes in stabilising southern Somalia "to stand up to Ethiopia and counter its hegemonic interests."

The status of Ethiopia's own Somali-speaking population in the country's Ogaden region is of obsessive importance to the government in Addis Ababa.

An all-out war was fought between Ethiopia and Somalia over the Ogaden in the late 1970s.

 Mulongo says this complicates regional policy: "The Ogaden war still lingers in the minds of Ethiopians. They cannot just sit back and allow the formation of a semi-autonomous Jubaland region led by the Kenyans. It will obviously reopen the Ogaden issue."

 Mulongo and others see an escalating contest for influence among regional states in Somalia. Few, even in Nairobi, seem clear about why Kenya invaded Somalia with a more than 2,000-strong expeditionary force in October on the narrow pretext of hot pursuit against attacks by terrorist groups based in Somalia.  It quickly emerged that Kenya's intervention would not be over in the promised 'matter of weeks'.

Instead, Kenya's army is bedding down for a lengthy operation aiming to seize the southern port of Kismayo, which provides Al-Shabaab with revenues and taxes of more than $70m a year, according to UN investigators.

A tough battle looms ahead.  Prime Minister Odinga has tried to calm TFG fears about the motives behind the invasion, saying that Kenya had no territorial interest in Somalia.

Questions persist about the creation of Jubaland last April, a semi-autonomous region in south-central Somalia, akin to Puntland and Somaliland.

Led by former TFG defence minister Professor Mohamed Abdi Gandhi, the new authority is meant to help force back Al-Shabaab and create a buffer zone for Northern Kenya.

 Somali nationalists see it as another incursion by Kenya, whose last major dispute with Mogadishu sparked the 1964 Shifta War in Northern Kenya.

Because the TFG is politically weak in the south, Jubaland has never been popular in Mogadishu.

Ethiopia and Djibouti also oppose the creation of Jubaland, arguing that with a fragile government in Mogadishu, it's a bad time to encourage more balkanisation.

 Kenya's expanding campaign raises questions about its relationship with Uganda, the senior partner in the AU peacekeeping effort.

Ethiopia prefers to stay out of the AU forces but sent its troops into western Somalia in December where they seized Beledweyne and a cluster of other towns from Al-Shabaab.

Addis Ababa remains profoundly sceptical about plans for a buffer zone – known as the Jubaland project – between northern Kenya and southern Somalia.

It would be yet another division of Somalia's territory and a useful enclave for oppositionists who could easily cross into Ethiopia's Ogaden region.

  THERE IS ALSO an immediate problem of command and control for operations in Somalia.

After four years in the field, Uganda's commanders may be unwilling to cede command of the AU mission, suggests a Kampala-based security expert: "Who will give orders to the Kenyan troops – [Uganda's] General Fred Mugisha or the Kenyan command? Will we see a reorganisation into sector commands or will there remain an overall command structure?"

 As diplomats and commanders grapple with these organisational complexities, many Somalis worry about the implications of this influx of outside interests.

Some fear that instability and terrorism could increase, arguing that Al-Shabaab will resort to more car bombings and targeted assassinations once it is evicted from its current bases.

 Diplomats warn that those intervening should not ignore some of the successes of the regional administrations and that the country is still far from the picture of universal anarchy as commonly portrayed.

Despite the debilitating conflict in Mogadishu and Kismayo, there has also been some impressive economic growth in areas such telecommunications, financial services and livestock farming.

Widespread internet access offers Somalis a vital link to the diaspora and the wider world.

The tremendous success of Somali traders in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Nairobi's Eastleigh district points to the potential for the country's economy, if Somalia's people can find their own political solution as international pressure mounts.

Posted on Monday, 06 February 2012 11:01
By Parselelo Kantai and Patrick Smith in Nairobi

Read more about the current situation in Somalia in Mary Harper's Getting Somalia Wrong

Reuters: Greece lets another deadline slip in bailout poker

2012-02-06T12:59:00.001Z

(Reuters) - Greece let yet another deadline slip on Monday for responding to painful terms for a new EU/IMF bailout as patience in Brussels wore thin over drawn-out negotiations among its feuding political leaders.

Failure to strike a deal to secure the 130 billion euro ($170 billion) rescue risks pushing Athens into a chaotic debt default which could threaten its future in the euro zone.

Panos Beglitis, spokesman of the PASOK socialist party, said on Sunday that leaders of the three parties backing technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos' government had to give their responses in principle by noon (5 a.m. ET).

However, a government official denied that the parties had been given an ultimatum to respond on Monday.

Asked whether the parties had to respond in time for a Euro Working Group meeting of finance ministry officials in Brussels, the Greek official said: "No, there is no deadline."

He said the entire Greek side had to agree terms of the rescue, which would be the second for Athens since 2010, with international lenders before the next meeting of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers.

"The only deadline is to have a staff agreement for the second bailout and the agreement of the political leaders before Eurogroup," said the official, who requested anonymity.

No date has yet been set for the Eurogroup meeting, although it is expected this week.

In Brussels, frustrated EU officials said Greece was already in "overtime" after failing to clinch an agreement at the weekend on a package including wage and pension reductions, job cuts and tougher tax enforcement measures.

"It will be very bad if there is no white smoke from Athens today," said one euro zone government source.

"We have already missed deadlines. In order to prepare the fresh tranche of money and reschedule debt in the first half of March, a whole series of technical steps must be taken. We need a decision now to put the mechanism of rescheduling in place."

Beglitis said the deadline had merely slipped to Tuesday due to the changing timetable of euro zone meetings.

Leaders of PASOK, the conservative New Democracy and the far-right LAOS party - who may face an angry electorate in parliamentary polls as soon as April - still have to agree on unresolved problems.

These include labor market reform and shoring up domestic banks. Greece needs the bailout money by March to meet big debt repayments but tempers are rising in the European Union over what it sees as Greek dithering on implementing reforms.

BANK HOPES
Papademos said after five hours of talks on Sunday that party chiefs had agreed measures including wage cuts and other reforms as part of spending cuts worth 1.5 percent of gross domestic product.
Hopes rose on Monday that they had also made progress on recapitalizing domestic banks, which are up to their necks in Greek government bonds now worth a fraction of their face value.

Greek bank stocks were up 8.8 percent at midday on hopes that lenders would be recapitalized without being nationalized after a debt swap under the latest bailout deal, which will radically cut the value of their bond holdings.

"Banks are concerned with the way they will be recapitalized, so that they remain independent ... It seems it will be done through a combination of instruments, which will reduce the risk of their nationalization," said Natasha Roumantzi, head of analysis at Piraeus Securities.

The euro fell broadly on investor concern that the parties had yet to sign off on the terms of a new bailout with a deadline imminent, keeping alive the risk of a messy default which could rock the currency bloc. The single currency slid by 0.6 percent to stand at $1.3070.

Talks on the bailout have dragged on for weeks.

WORN DOWN
Greeks have been worn down by a deep recession, now in its fifth year, and wave after wave of austerity measures imposed under the first bailout.

Alarmed by the prospect of yet more budget cuts, Greece's two main trade unions said they would call a 24-hour strike for Tuesday in protest against policies they say have only driven the economy into a downward spiral.

"Despite our sacrifices and despite admitting that the policy mix is wrong, they still ask for more austerity," Ilias Iliopoulos, secretary general of public sector union ADEDY, told Reuters.

ADEDY and its private sector sister union GSEE, which will join Tuesday's strike, represent about 2 million workers or roughly half the country's workforce.

Leftist and communist-affiliated groups will rally at around 11 a.m. ET on Monday to march to parliament.

With Greece facing 14.5 billion euros of debt repayments in March, a bill it cannot meet without further bailout funds, the stakes could not be higher.

Officials have emerged increasingly despondent after each round of talks, complaining that the troika of European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund was refusing to yield on demands to cut the minimum wage, axe holiday bonuses and fire public sector workers.
New Democracy and LAOS in particular have staunchly opposed further wage and spending cuts, arguing they risk precipitating an even deeper recession and imposing more pain on Greeks.

The slow progress has angered Greece's European partners. Euro zone officials say finance ministers told Greece on Saturday it could not go ahead with an agreed deal to restructure privately held debt until it guaranteed it would implement reforms.

"There is a great sense of frustration that they are dragging their feet," one euro zone official said.

©2011 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

For more information on the economic crisis, check out Yanis Varoufakis' The Global Minotaur available from Zed Books

The Guardian: China bans its airlines from paying EU carbon tax

2012-02-06T12:17:00.002Z

China has banned its airlines from paying the EU carbon tax on flights. Photograph: Greg Baker/AP

China has banned its airlines from paying the new European Union carbon charge, state news agency Xinhua has reported – stepping up the international battle over the scheme.

The levy applies to all airlines flying to and from EU countries. Companies that do not comply face fines and ultimately could be banned from using EU airports.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said on Monday that airlines were not allowed to pay the EU charge, increase freight costs or add other fees, according to Xinhua. It cited authorisation from the state council, China's cabinet.

Hinting at possible retaliation, Xinhua added: "China will consider adopting necessary measures to protect interests of Chinese individuals and companies, pending the development of the issue."

The EU's ambassador in Beijing, Markus Ederer, told a press briefing it hoped to resolve the issue through negotiation. Beijing's announcement came one week before a China-EU summit.

Although the scheme came into force from 1 January, fees do not have to be paid until March 2013. Supporters believe including aviation in the emissions trading scheme is crucial because the industry's carbon output is soaring.

China, the US, India and others are bitterly opposed to the scheme, leading to fears it could spark a trade war.

A US attempt to overturn the scheme was rejected by the European court of justice in December.
Chinese airlines have already vowed to ignore the scheme. China argues it is unreasonable to apply the levy to developing nations and wants the costs of reducing carbon to be passed on to aircraft manufacturers.

Critics also argue that regulation of the industry should be negotiated at the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organisation. But European leaders say they have been waiting for years for the ICAO to act.

Connie Hedegaard, the EU's climate action commissioner, has stressed the scheme allows for "equivalent measures" – other forms of carbon reduction – to be taken into account.

Chai Haibo, the deputy secretary of the China Air Transport Association, told Bloomberg: "I believe all sides will negotiate again and find a solution … I can't imagine that the worst case, such as the EU grounding Chinese flights, could happen."

Tania Branigan in Beijing guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 February 2012 06.48 GMT

If you're interested in reading more about sustainable avaiation try Peter McManner's Fly and be Damned available for review, inspection and pre-order now at http://zedbooks.co.uk/paperback/fly-and-be-damned