Economy and Society

• 2006-08-01: The Plutocrats go wild;
• 2006-08-02: … Radio France Culture de Février 2004;
• 2006-08-03: Vichy, Argent et zyklon B en 1940-44;
• 2006-08-04: Dangerous Pesticides in Coca-Cola and Pepsi in India;
• 2006-08-05: Texts about Economy and Indigenous Peoples;
• 2006-08-06: again Alternative Economy;
• 2006-08-07: Official development aid grows, but not enough to meet goals;
• 2006-08-08: Haiti’s Election – Looking Back;
• 2006-08-09: Suspension sine die des négociations du cycle de Doha;
• 2006-08-10: Between Geneva, Singapore and Heiligendamm;
• 2006-08-11: Remittances Do More Than Investments;
• 2006-08-12: Roundtable with Joschka Fischer about international issues;
• 2006-08-13: Stop trying to please China US Internet companies told;
• 2006-08-14: SEEP network – Client Assessments, Case Studies;
• 2006-08-15: Oil is behind struggle in Darfur;
• 2006-08-16: World Economy seen by Economy Watch;
• 2006-08-17: Niger delta human development report;
• 2006-08-18: China makes Africa its business;
• 2006-08-19: le talon d’Achille de Bush;
• 2006-08-20: The Muslim malaise;
• 2006-08-21: Zone euro – excédent commercial en juin;
• 2006-08-22: Venezuela: Going Beyond Survival;
• 2006-08-23: US official outlines policy toward Kazakhstan;
• 2006-08-23: Indian American professor to quit IMF;
• 2006-08-24: China’s economy rides into Tibet;
• 2006-08-25: Jobless growth in a region of rising trade;
• 2006-08-26: US Presidents critical thoughts about money barons;
• 2006-08-27: Horizons et Débats, l’escroquerie monétaire mondiale – 1ère partie;
• 2006-08-28: Horizons et Débats, l’escroquerie monétaire mondiale – 2ème partie;
• 2006-08-29: The Fed;
• 2006-08-30: Some Social Reports;
• 2006-08-31: Bibliography The FED, Money, Gold, Economy, Society.

Bibliography The FED, Money, Gold, Economy, Society:

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• The social watch report 2005: download the 198 pages in one file (also available per chapter). The report exists also in Espagnol, Portugues, German
• You search an article? Find 10 Million Articles
• Social Report 2006, New Zealand Gov.
• Some of the biggest victims of domestic violence are the smallest: UNICEF Report as video; Same as pdf.
• The Progress Report, July 27, 2006
• Social Report Positive For Pacific People, August 14, 2006
• Social Report shows real gains for Maori, August 8, 2006
• UN report cautions Asia-Pacific economies against bubble burst, Sept. 2, 2006
• UN REPORT WARNS ASIAN GOVERNMENTS TO PREPARE FOR FINANCIAL DOWNTURN, September 02, 2006
• NCLR Report Highlights Financial Vulnerability of Private Household Workers in U.S.
• Report reveals blight of supercasinos, Sept. 01,06
• Gender bias in UP’s govt schools, says report
• Welfare study shows need for guaranteed income, Sep. 2, 2006
• Campus databased used to identify terrorists, Sept. 2, 2006
• Robert D. Novak: Social Security reform back on the table?, Sept. 02, 2006

The US Federal Reserve System, what it is:

The Federal Reserve System (also the Federal Reserve; informally The Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. The Federal Reserve System is a quasi-governmental banking system composed of (1) a presidentially-appointed Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.; (2) the Federal Open Market Committee; (3) twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation; and (4) numerous private member banks, which own varying amounts of stock in the regional Federal Reserve Banks. Ben Bernanke serves as the current Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Legal status and position in government: The various components of the Federal Reserve System have differing legal statuses. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is an independent government agency. The Board is subject to laws like the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act which cover Federal agencies and not private entities. Like most other independent agencies, its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branches of government.

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par Eberhard Hamer, professeur à l’institut des classes moyennes de Hanovre:

(Suite de l’article du 27 août 2006).

La mainmise sur les valeurs réelles au moyen d’une monnaie-fiction: Si les participants au marché savaient que notre système monétaire repose finalement sur la monnaie privée qu’est le dollar et que cette monnaie dépend uniquement des souhaits de manipulation et d’abus de l’oligarchie financière, ils perdraient confiance dans la monnaie, ne considéreraient plus celle-ci comme moyen de conservation de la valeur, mais tenteraient d’échapper à la dévalorisation constante de la monnaie en se réfugiant dans les valeurs réelles.

• Or telle est l’action de ceux qui, cachés derrière la Fed, procèdent à la plus forte augmentation de la masse monétaire de tous les temps. Depuis des décennies, ils achètent avec une monnaie perdant de plus en plus de sa valeur toutes les valeurs réelles qu’ils trouvent: stocks de matières premières, complexes industriels, immeubles et presque chaque société financière étrangère à peu près intacte par une reprise amicale ou hostile, à presque n’importe quel prix. Non seulement la haute finance des Etats-Unis accumule les valeurs réelles mondiales, mais aussi l’Etat importe depuis des années, contre de la monnaie de papier au fond sans valeur, davantage de valeurs réelles du monde qu’il n’en peut payer et s’endette ainsi sans limite envers l’étranger – tant que les créanciers étrangers croient encore à la valeur du dollar ou peuvent être obligés, par chantage politique, de prendre comme réserves monétaires ces dollars pourris.

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par Eberhard Hamer, professeur à l’institut des classes moyennes de Hanovre:

La manipulation actuelle des systèmes de la monnaie et des changes constitue le scandale le plus important et aux conséquences les plus marquées de notre époque. Pour la première fois, l’escroquerie monétaire atteint des dimensions mondiales, car elle a lieu sur toute la planète, elle ne peut plus être contrôlée, arrétée ou empéchée par aucun gouvernement et elle a même lieu de manière formellement légale, conformément à des lois nationales désuètes. Toutefois, il est certain que l’escroquerie monétaire, comme toute autre escroquerie, ne peut pas enrichir à long terme les malfaiteurs par l’appauvrissement de leurs victimes, puisque l’on ne peut abuser d’aucun système monétaire libéral à long terme. Selon la théorie financière, la monnaie est un moyen d’échange légalisé, qui conserve de surplus sa valeur. C’est pourquoi elle était jadis un monopole de l’Etat (droit de battre monnaie). Les pièces d’or, d’argent et de cuivre qui circulaient comme monnaie étaient battues par l’Etat. Celui-ci garantissait aussi la pureté du métal et le poids des monnaies, de sorte que l’on savait à tout moment, dans le pays comme à l’étranger, quelle était la valeur de chaque pièce. Ainsi, les pièces de monnaie étaient simultanément moyen d’échange et valeur durable.

Mais pour battre monnaie, l’Etat doit avoir de l’or et de l’argent. Il était donc important qu’il disposét de mines d’argent par exemple (Rammelsberg près Goslar), ce qui lui permettait de battre des monnaies supplémentaires en argent. Inversement, les citoyens savaient que l’Etat ne pouvait battre monnaie que dans la mesure où il disposait des métaux précieux correspondants. L’approvisionnement en métaux précieux était donc la base de la monnaie de métal précieux en circulation (monnaie d’or en circulation).

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Excerpts of Stephen Lehman’s article ‘Dirty Secrets of the Temple‘, see the whole 9 page article on his blog. (Remark: when Stephen Lehman says ‘we’, he means the American people).

J.F.Kennedy:

It almost happened 43 years ago when one president decided to act on behalf of the people who elected him. That man was John Kennedy, who before his death planned to end the Federal Reserve System to eliminate the national debt a central bank creates by printing money and loaning it to the government. That debt has now risen to over $8,400,000,000,000 ($8.4 trillion) which every taxpayer must pay for and has done so in the amount of nearly $174,000,000,000 ($174 billion) in just the first three months of 2006. This debt service is now an annualized amount exceeding two-thirds of a trillion dollars. It’s made the bankers rich (which was the whole idea) and the public poorer because we’re taxed to pay the tab. It’s no exaggeration to call this the greatest financial scam in world history and one that gets greater every day.

The debt was less onerous 40 years ago, but Kennedy understood its danger to the country and the burden it placed on the public. Thus, on June 4, 1963, he issued presidential order EO 11110 giving the president authority to issue currency. He then ordered the US Treasury to print over $4 billion worth of “United States Notes” to replace Federal Reserve Notes. He intended to replace them all when enough of the new currency was in circulation so he could end the Federal Reserve System and the control it gave the international bankers over the US government and the public. Just months after the Kennedy plan went into effect, he was assassinated in Dallas in what was surely a coup d’etat disguised to look otherwise and may well have been carried out at least in part to save the Fed System and concentration of power it created that was so profitable for the powerful bankers in the country.

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By ALFREDO G. ROSARIO, August 23, 2006 – It is ironic that while Asia-Pacific has nearly doubled its share in global trade in the past 15 years, the unemployment rate has increased in the region. “This worrisome trend of ‘jobless growth’ has profound implications for human development in Asia-Pacific because employment represents the main channel for the effects of trade on the nonincome aspects of poverty,” said the Asia-Pacific Human Development Report. Since 1990, the report added, some of the most trade-intensive countries, such as China and Singapore, have seen unemployment rates substantially increase. According to the report, young men and women, aged 15 to 24, were most affected by the rising unemployment. They constituted nearly half of the region’s total jobless population.

… // …

The overseas employment program, fathered by the late statesman Blas F. Ople when he was secretary of labor, has deployed the bulk of land-based to the Middle East. The land-based workers, together with an estimated 200,000 Filipino seamen manning sea-going vessels, remit about US$10 million yearly. Their remittances have helped shore up the Philippine economy, especially during a financial crisis. Local employment is low in an economy suffering from poor foreign investments. Without the overseas employment program, the unemployment rate in the Philippines will have been worse. There is a strong campaign for foreign investments to fuel the business and industrial sectors to generate more jobs. Efforts are also being made to link the growth of trade with human development. (Read the rest of this article on ABS-CBNnews.com).

By James T. Areddy, August 24, 2006, The Wall Street Journal – NAGQU, China — China is trying to revive poor rural regions through economic development. In Tibet, the plan has hit a snag: Ni Ma won’t slaughter his yaks. Duan Xiangzheng, a Chinese Communist Party official charged with stimulating the economy in this Tibetan county, is pushing for the systematic slaughtering of yaks to kick-start a meat-packing industry. Mr. Duan says exporting the beefy-tasting meat and drapes of black wool to markets elsewhere in China makes economic sense and is an “inevitable” development.

… // …

Yet Tibet also is still very much a rural place — some 80 percent of its 2.7 million population is spread out on grasslands that cover almost a quarter of the country. Tibetans are protective of their distinctive Buddhist culture, which abhors the killing of animals. Many are suspicious of Chinese interference and some see the economic integration, part of the government’s six-year-old “Go West” policy, as a form of colonization. Tibetans already believe the Chinese are taking over the economy. In Lhasa, it is difficult to find a local-born taxi driver, waiter or laborer, because Chinese from other provinces will work for lower wages.

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Indo-Asian News Service, Washington, August 23, 2006; – Raghuram Rajan, the International Monetary Fund’s economic counsellor and director of its research department, plans to return to his professorship at the University of Chicago by early 2007.

… // …

Rajan was awarded the inaugural Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association for contributions to finance by an economist under 40. During his tenure at the Fund, it has undertaken a complete review of its medium-term strategy, a process to which the research department has contributed substantially. Rajan said in his letter: “Research has also worked on bringing modern modelling techniques and techniques of exchange rate assessment to bear on our Article IV discussions with member countries. We have expanded work on finance, aid and development, the political economy of reforms, and reform of the IMF.” In cooperation with the Asia and Pacific Department, the research department has also analysed the growth and integration of China and India into the world economy, and has put the Fund in the forefront of policy analysis and discussion on these two countries, Rajan said. In a statement to the IMF Executive Board, de Rato acknowledged Rajan’s many important contributions to the IMF.

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August 24, 2006 – Evan A. Feigenbaum, the new deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, outlined US policy in Central Asia – and particularly in Kazakhstan – during a speech 23 August at a conference entitled “Kazakhstan and the USA: Current State and Prospects for Bilateral Cooperation.” The conference was sponsored by the Institute of World Economy and Policy at the First Kazakhstan President Foundation in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in collaboration with the US Embassy in Almaty and the AES Corporation. Participants discussed the US role in developing Kazakhstan’s energy industry, prospects for supplying oil to the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline, bilateral trade, US support for Kazakhstan’s World Trade Organization accession, US investment outside the energy sector, and promoting security in Central Asia and the Caspian region. Following is the prepared text of Feigenbaum’s remarks on “Kazakhstan and the United States in a Changed World”: ‘Kazakhstan and the United States in a changed world’. (See the whole article on UzReport.com).

Making the Social Economy a Real Alternative, By Michael A. Lebowitz, Global Research, August 19, 2006 – The rations of slaves were never fixed. And so, too, it has always been possible within capitalism for workers and citizens, through their struggles, to secure themselves some share of the benefits of social labour. Capitalist globalisation and the offensive of neoliberal state policies, however, encroached upon all those gains from past struggles; and the answer to those who were surprised to find those victories ephemeral was the mantra of TINA— that ‘there is no alternative’. Yet, as the devastation of the capitalist offensive has become obvious, opposition has emerged especially in Latin America. Working people around the world look here these days for the demonstration that ‘a better world is possible.’

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Voir plus sur actuLive: Zone euro, excédent commercial de 2 milliards d’euros en juin – La zone euro a enregistré en juin un excédent de 2,0 milliards d’euros pour son commerce extérieur, contre un déficit de 3,2 milliards en mai, selon les premières estimations publiées lundi par l’office statistique européen Eurostat. Cet excédent en juin a surpris les économistes interrogés par l’agence financière AFX, qui attendaient un déficit de 1,2 milliard d’euros. Pour l’ensemble de l’Union européenne (UE-25), le commerce extérieur s’est soldé par un déficit de 11,8 milliards d’euros en juin, contre un déficit de 15,7 milliards en mai. Il y a un an, en juin 2005, l’excédent enregistré avait été de 6,8 milliards d’euros pour la zone euro, tandis que l’UE-25 avait accusé un déficit de 2,3 milliards. Selon les données détaillées publiées sur l’UE-25 par Eurostat pour les cinq premiers mois de l’année, le déficit du secteur de l’énergie a fortement augmenté sur un an, passant de 79,9 milliards d’euros de janvier à mai 2005 à 118,8 milliards d’euros en janvier-mai 2006.

En revanche, les excédents enregistrés pour les produits chimiques (31,0 mds contre 26,5 mds) et pour les machines et véhicules (39,8 mds contre 35,0 mds) se sont accrûs, note Eurostat.

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By HAROON SIDDIQUI, Aug. 20, 2006 – read the whole of this very long article on this site of the Toronto Star.

He who wrongs a Jew or a Christian will have me as his accuser on the Day of Judgment — Prophet Muhammad.

Contrary to the popular belief that the West is under siege from Muslim terrorists, it is Muslims who have become the biggest victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001, as inconceivable as that would have seemed in the aftermath of the murder of 2,900 Americans. Since then, between 34,000 and 100,000 Iraqis have been killed by the Americans or the insurgents. Nobody knows how many have been killed in Afghanistan. In the spots hit by terrorists — from London and Madrid to Amman, Istanbul, Riyadh and Jeddah, through Karachi to Bali and Jakarta — more Muslims have been killed and injured than non-Muslims.

None of this is to say that Muslims do not have problems that they must address. They do. But the problems are not quite what many in the West make them out to be.

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L’économie reste le talon d’Achille de Bush et de ses conseillers – (Voir l’article entier sur actuLive) – Extraits: …

… Selon un sondage du l’institut Pew publié jeudi, 59% des Américains déplorent la gestion économique du président Bush, contre 33% qui l’approuvant, soit une chute par rapport aux 60% d’avis favorables enregistrés en 2002 …

… “Notre économie a des bases fortes et solides. Du fait de nos baisses d’impôts, les travailleurs américains et leurs familles ainsi que les petites entreprises peuvent garder une plus grande part de l’argent qu’ils ont gagné, et ils utilisent cet argent pour faire avancer notre économie”, a assuré M. Bush lors d’une conférence de presse …

… “C’est la question à 100.000 dollars”, a-t-il estimé, alors qu’il était interrogé après cette réunion sur les raisons de l’insatisfaction des Américains. “Je pense que la raison principale est que beaucoup d’Américains ne ressentent pas les bénéfices” même s’ils sont “sans contexte plus riches du fait de la croissance et des créations d’emplois”, a-t-il assuré lors d’une conférence téléphonique. Le prix de l’énergie et les coûts des soins médicaux notamment pèsent lourd sur la perception qu’ont les Américains de leur richesse personnelle, selon lui …

… Selon l’institut Pew, les trois dossiers qui intéressent le plus les Américains à l’approche des élections au Congrès sont l’éducation, le prix de l’essence et la santé. L’Irak n’arrive qu’en quatrième place. Edward Lazear, le chef des conseillers économiques de la Maison Blanche, a pour sa part estimé que le mécontentement sur l’Irak pouvait faire de l’ombre aux efforts du gouvernement Bush pour “vendre” l’économie. “Nous savons que plus les sondages sont concentrés sur l’économie, plus les réponses sont positives”, a-t-il affirmé …

… Aujourd’hui la croissance est entrée dans une phase de ralentissement, et le taux de chômage est remonté de 4,6 à 4,8% le mois dernier.

By Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times, August 18, 2006 – Excerpts: … China, it seems, is suddenly everywhere in Africa, not just in oil-rich states. Trade between Africa and China has almost quadrupled since 2001, and last year reached almost $40 billion. China is hardly the first nation to seek its fortune in Africa. First the Arabs, then the Europeans built their empires on African riches and sweat, followed by the Cold Warriors, fighting their proxy ideological battles in Africa’s marketplaces for influence and profit.

Through all the iterations of the world’s engagement with Africa, most of the continent’s nationsprimarily supplied valuable raw materials to the developed world while serving as a marketplace for cheap manufactured goods. But China seems to be offering Africa something new, a straightforward business relationship between equals based on mutual interest and noninterference in the internal affairs of its allies. Or as the economist Jeffrey Sachs phrased it at a conference in Beijing this week, “China gives fewer lectures and more practical help.” But is China’s interest in Africa truly different from that of the earlier powers? Or is Beijing, as some are beginning to say, peddling the same exploitative formula in an attractive dressing of Third World solidarity?

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Pollution of the N-Delta, by Oil Companies, Posted to the Web on August 15, 2006.

… // …

People at the grass-roots unfortunately are not benefiting from the increased exploitation of non-timber forest resources. Middlemen package most of the harvest for urban markets, where they make huge gains. Very little returns to the rural economy; in general, there is a net transfer of resources from the rural to the urban areas.

Occupational Disorientation: One of the greatest challenges to human development in the Niger Delta region is how to win people back to the traditional livelihoods that sustained them in the past. As in other parts of the country, younger people have left the rural areas.

Many youths, even those still residing in rural areas, are mainly interested in rent-seeking from oil operations in the form of standby money or oil bunkering, hostage-taking and sabotage of oil pipelines areas. Fishing and agriculture have suffered so much from environmental problems and social challenges, and from the neglect of successive governments, that it is very difficult to motivate young people to take an interest in these livelihoods. Many youths, even those still residing in rural areas, are more interested in rent-seeking from oil operations in the form of standby money or oil bunkering, hostage-taking and sabotage of oil pipelines.

The fundamental issue is how traditional occupational pursuits can exist with oil production activities in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and recrimination. Interest in traditional economic pursuits such as agriculture and fishing cannot be promoted as long as easy money flows from the oil companies, albeit on an unsustainable basis.

Another concern is the increase in the number of sex workers and indulgence in casual sex by both men and women. The repercussions are discussed in the following chapters on HIV&AIDS and livelihoods. (Read the whole of this very long article on Vanguard).

The dependency among the countries of the world has increased very fast giving birth a more economic relationship. The information upon knowledge driven world economic countries is marked noteworthy. The performance of the world economic countries in the era of market friendliness has become more dynamic from time to time. Here in this section we are trying to cover the economic profile of the countries of the world. The area of the coverage on the countries include the key economic indicators, structure of the economy covering almost all the sectors, major exports and imports and performance of the economy in the international scenario.

(See all links for every country on Economy Watch/World Economy).

Compare Infobase Pvt. Ltd. 1999-2006, (A network of Websites).

Key Economic Indicators – Understanding the economy’s ebb and flow can get complicated. But we’ve made it easy for investors, by sifting through the piles of economic data out there and plucking out a selection of key economic indicators. Use the applet below to examine some of the most common statistics that economists watch. For example, the gross domestic product, the key measure of the economy’s overall output from quarter to quarter, is a good indicator of where the economy’s been. To gauge where it’s headed, click on some of the other indicators, which show consumer purchasing trends, buyers’ moods, export orders and job growth. (See on SmartMoney.com)

Linked with Understanding Sudan – The Darfur conflict.

By G. Dunkel, Published Apr 27, 2006 – The mass media in the U.S., France and Britain are writing a great deal about the suffering in the Darfur region of western Sudan and the tensions between the Sudanese government and neighboring Chad. Not surprisingly, they write very little about the economic interests these three imperialist countries have in the oil recently discovered in this part of Africa.

Chad, which was once a French colony and still is occupied by French troops, is accusing Sudan of supporting and encouraging an April 14 raid on its capital, Ndjamena. It is threatening to expel 200,000 Sudanese living in Chad who get their support from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Sudan—which at one time was a British colony, but has since been using its oil to develop an independent economy—charges that Chad has been supporting rebellion in Darfur. Sudan wants the UNHCR to financially support the 15,000 Chadians who have fled to Sudan recently to escape heavy fighting in eastern Chad.

The fierce fighting in eastern Chad at the end of March resulted in the combat death of Chadian Army commander Brig. Gen. Abakar Youssouf Mahamat Itno, underlining the army’s decline.

China plays a different role

Darfur is known to have major yet untapped oil reserves, representing a vast amount of potential wealth at a time when crude oil has risen to nearly $75 a barrel.

While France and the U.S. are the only two imperialist countries with significant military forces in Africa, Britain still plays a major diplomatic and political role there, generally in coordination with Washington.

China plays a different role. The Western imperialists see China as their growing competitor for Sudan’s oil.

China has actually helped Sudan’s economic development while serving its own needs for oil.

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ACLAM, the Experience of Action Contre La Misère in Haiti, a 26 pages study: Armed conflicts and natural disasters are frequent occurrences in the developing countries where microfinance institutions (MFIs) operate. This SEEP Network Practitioner Learning Program case study discusses the experience of Action Contre La Misere (ACLAM), an MFI in Haiti, working simultaneously in both of these environments. ACLAM’s experience offers a useful perspective that can supplement existing literature on microfinance programs in these environments.
Go to this page of SEEPnetwork and click there on /files/3591_file_FINAL_5_PLP_Case_Study_2_ACLAM_in_Haiti.pdf

CRECER: This SEEP Network Practitioner Learning Program case study highlights four key lessons learned from the client assessment program of the Crédito con Educación Rural (CRECER), a Microfinance Institution (MFI) that uses village-banking methodology in Bolivia.
Go to this page of SEEPnetwork and click there on /files/3588_file_SEEP_PLP_in_CA_Case_Study_CRECER.FINAL.pdf (303 KB)

Client Assessment Valuable in Widely Different Circumstances: SEEP has published two case studies on individual MFIs that participated in its recent “Putting Client Assessment to Work” PLP: one on ACLAM (Haiti) and another on CRECER (Bolivia). Despite radically different operating conditions, both institutions were able to use client assessment to improve thier institutions and services.
Go to this page of SEEPnetwork and click there on /files/3602_file_clientassessmentvaluable.pdf (21 KB)

Read all this and much more on weitzenegger.de – The website for International  Development Cooperation, and its (english) Newsletter.

By Stan Beer, Sunday, 13 August 2006 – See more on IT wire.
As the debate continues to simmer about the ethics of Internet companies storing personally identifiable search data, a new wave of criticism of the major US Internet companies is sweeping the UK and Europe over the policies of the Internet companies in China.

Sparked by a call from Human Rights Watch to force the major Internet players to protect the confidentiality of Chinese dissidents, Members of Parliament in the UK have criticised companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for agreeing to censor searches in China.

In an extensive report titled “Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship”, Human Rights Watch has made a number of far reaching demands mainly targeting the major Internet players.

One of the most strident demands is for legislation to be enacted in the US and Europe to forbid Internet companies from storing data on users on servers in countries where freedom of speech is not allowed. Ironically, this demand has been made at a time when an error by US Internet provider AOL has disclosed stored personal search information made by hundreds of thousands of its users.

All three major search companies admit to censoring search results on their sites China, claiming that they must do this to comply with the local laws.

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August 11,2006 – Excerpt:

… JOSCHKA FISCHER: Well, thank you very much. I feel very honored to be invited to this very prestigious society. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not experienced in a professional way about international law, but I have to deal with it and will deal with in the future in foreign policy and security policy. And of course, I mean, the very concept of sovereignty, historically, was created in Europe as the answer on religious war. So at the end — (inaudible) — the power, which was in the very old Europe decentralized and on several actors and the state was only one actor, to concentrate all the power in an absolute way on the state, to overcome the atrocities, brutalities of the religious civil wars. This was the idea — theoretical idea of Hobbes and it was the reality of the Westphalian peace. But even in the best days of these classical European sovereignty concept, all at the end — (word inaudible) — were equal, but some were more equal. So from the very beginning, it was a theoretical or formal equality, which was more or less accepted, but by and then not accepted. And it depends, sovereignty, also not on theoretical concept but on the power, not only to control the territory but also to defend the control of such a territory or to extend it. And sovereignty, therefore, was also a question of the stability of the European state system; and therefore, it was created on the concept of the balance of power, not the balance of law but the balance of power. So power was and is an essential element of international law, and we shouldn’t forget that. And it was an emerging system. It was not a (stated system ?). One of the major blows for the traditional concept of sovereignty was the French Revolution. It was at that moment the whole system changed completely.

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By Sanjay Suri, Aug 2 (IPS) – The British are not investing a great deal in the developing world, but remittances from Britain are emerging as a growing counter to poverty, a new survey shows. Immigrants and their families from South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean remit on average 870 pounds (1,627 dollars) a family a year, according to a survey ordered by the Department for International Development (DFID).

“We recognise that people in the UK from other parts of Asia and the world bring huge benefits to their country,” Gareth Thomas, minister for international development told IPS. “We welcome the fact that they are fighting against poverty by sending money to their families and friends. We all have responsibilities to our parents and families. This is clearly a way in which people here recognise that responsibility and we welcome it.”

The estimated remittances far outweigh foreign direct investments in almost all developing countries from where migrant families were surveyed. While investments are simple enough to quantify, remittances are not. “This survey is designed from our point to actually focus on that lack of information,” Thomas said. “Of how much money is going from UK to Asia, and Africa.” DFID believes that such remittances are a substantial factor in countering poverty.

“International remittances flows are very large and growing, constituting now a large share of international financial flows and acquiring an ever greater importance in the balance of payments of recipient countries,” the survey report says. Besides, they help in “supplementing the incomes of millions of families in developing countries.” DFID said it had carried out the survey as part of “a concerted effort by international organisations, bilateral donors and non-governmental organisations to better understand the characteristics of migrant remittances in order to help maximise their developmental impacts.” The survey carried out by the company ICM Research in May 2006 was organised as a series or self-completion questionnaires distributed in 143 areas to all black and minority households who had been remitting at least once over the previous 12 months. A total of 1778 questionnaires were returned. ((Read the rest of this long article on IPS).

Read all this and much more on weitzenegger.de – The website for International  Development Cooperation, and its (english) Newsletter.

When globalisers obstruct globalisation, by Rainer Falk – With the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) in Geneva suspended, with the G8 summit in St Petersburg deeply flawed, with an irritating outlook for next year’s Heiligendamm summit, and – last but not least – with the Bretton Woods twins IMF and World Bank in acute crisis, these days seem to form a perfect scenario for an anti-globaliser‘s summer festival. But it is the globalisers themselves who are obstructing globalisation. And the alternative to this fatal perspective is democracy … (Read this long article on World Economy & Development).

Down of the same page, find the link for Rainer Falk’s other article ‘How to Reform the IMF? How Much Weight for Europe?’ – The current debate about the future of the International Monetary Fund, such as just recently at the spring meetings of IMF and World Bank in Washington, is a historic opportunity for reform. Only those who benefit from the fund’s role as a debt collection agency and an instrument of disciplinary neo-liberalism might regret its current loss of importance, comments Rainer Falk … (read the rest there).

Read all this about Economy and much more on weitzenegger.de – The website for International  Development Cooperation, and on its (english) Newsletter.

First: attac français; and attac in english; and attac auf deutsch, and attac in spain, and attac in italian.

Echec des négociations à l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC), annoncée à Genève le 24 juillet dernier par son directeur général, M. Pascal Lamy, est-elle une bonne ou une mauvaise nouvelle ?

Une très mauvaise nouvelle, à en croire les médias dominants qui versent des larmes de crocodile sur le sort des pays pauvres prétendument affectés par la non conclusion d’un accord qui aurait facilité l’accès de leurs productions aux marchés des pays riches.

Pour comprendre l’imposture de ce discours, il faut d’abord démonter ses présupposé:

- Le premier, qui fonde tous les autres, est que l’ouverture totale des marchés, le libre-échangisme sans limites, serait bénéfique à tous, pays et populations pauvres et riches. Les pays non industrialisés, mais qui voudraient le devenir, auraient, nous dit-on, tout à gagner à abaisser leurs barrières tarifaires aux produits industriels et aux services fournis par des firmes transnationales du Nord dont la productivité est sans commune mesure avec celle des entreprises locales. Ce n’est pas seulement le simple bon sens qui invalide une telle allégation, c’est aussi l’expérience. Les pays les plus fréquemment cités comme des « success stories » en la matière (la Corée, Taïwan) ont fait exactement l’inverse : ils ont bâti leur industrialisation sur la protection de leur marché intérieur, de manière à permettre à leurs industries naissantes de ne pas être étouffées dans l’œuf.

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Linked with Marie Carmèle Rose-Anne Auguste – Haiti.

by Roger Annis; Briarpatch; August 06, 2006 – Haiti’s occupiers and elites badly needed the legitimacy of a “democratic” election. Unfortunately for them, the poor majority took them at their word….

Sometimes even the best-laid plans of the powerful go astray. Such was the case in Haiti in February of this year when Haitians turned out in overwhelming numbers to elect René Préval as president. Préval, who first served as president from 1996 to 2001, is an ally of the deposed President Jean Bertrand Aristide, and thus his election was a powerful rebuke to the foreign powers, including Canada, that conspired to overthrow Aristide’s government in February 2004.

The US, France, and Canada drove Aristide from office because his government sought to protect Haiti’s poor majority from the worst ravages of the world economic order. Aristide’s foreign policy measures, including the forging of diplomatic and economic ties with Cuba, were deemed equally unacceptable. This placed Aristide and his popular, mass-based movement, Lavalas, at odds with the economic powers in the Caribbean region, for whom he and his government served as a dangerous example.

With Aristide shipped out of the country and Haiti’s foreign-appointed “interim government” brutally suppressing dissent, and in the face of a growing international outcry over systematic human rights violations by the coup regime and occupying force, the local and foreign elites needed the legitimacy of an election to justify the coup. But the Haitian masses refused to be intimidated on election day, and soundly rejected the elite’s chosen candidates.

The plan, and its unraveling: (Read the rest of this very long article on this ZNet page).

Read the text ‘What the World Bank and IDB Owe Haiti‘.

Read also this interview with Stan Goff about US Military and Haiti.

And this article in THE HILL of July 27, 2005.

Linked with JOSÉ ANTONIO OCAMPO – Colombia, and with Promoting the Rights, Voices and Visions of Indigenous Peoples, and with Texts about Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights, and with Indigenous Webs for Information, and with Texts about Economy and Indigenous Peoples.

An UN report, published in noticias.info on July 12, 2006.

Donor countries’ official development assistance (ODA) to poorer nations has grown markedly in the past few years due to various relief efforts, but funding to meet international development goals has actually dropped off, according to a report presented today to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in Geneva.

“The drop in ODA (excluding special purpose grants) leads to less ODA available as a source of budgetary resources, thereby limiting the efforts of developing countries to pursue the goals,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a note conveying a statistical review of trends in development cooperation.

“The trend must be reversed,” he maintains.

The report recalls that during the early 1990s, the ODA share of donor countries’ gross national income shrank to a low of 0.21 per cent, but the pledges made by donors to increase such aid at the International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico in 2000, stemmed the fall.

By 2005 ODA had recovered to reach a high of $106.5 billion, with the share of ODA to gross national income equal to 0.33 per cent. Aid for development programmes and projects recorded the largest increase in many years, the report says.

It points out, however, that the recent recovery in aid flows has been mainly the result of debt relief for Iraq and Nigeria and emergency aid to the tsunami-affected countries in the Indian Ocean.

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Found on wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecorates: 

Ecorates: The aim of the Ecorate system is to enable EYFA and those organizations which share the concern of economical inequalities between countries, to use a fair exchange rate. It is an alternative ‘currency’ based on the actual cost of living in each country.

The Ecorate system is necessary to create alternative frameworks for our economic relations (paying participation fees, subscription prices…) that break the profit guided and socially careless dynamics. Differences in the prices levels, exchange currency rates, purchasing power… might financially discourage or even impede groups and individuals from some countries from participating in gatherings and seminars or from subscribing to magazines. We should empower ourselves through creating mechanisms to include social concerns in our ways of functioning.

Ecorate system is a fully grassroots and participatory system. The fact that we research to have our own rates rather than using official institutional ones is one of the most important characteristics of the system. We make a survey among activist to collect information about the cost of life in each country [see questionnaire] through looking at the prices of different basic products, which is subsequently used to calculate the Ecorates and the value of the eco for each country.

The system contains two tools:

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First an explanation of Alernative Economy on wikipedia/Category, and … /talk.

Last new articles about:

• Celtel sets flat call rates across East Africa resp Homepage Nigerian Tribune
• Nigeria: Cash Economy, Robbers resp Homepage all Africa
• An alternative to a failed MercoSur resp Homepage ISN
• What if gas prices get out of hand? resp Homepage Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
• Other Economies are Possible! resp Homepage dollar & sense
• Castro’s Free Market Lobbyists resp Homepage Frontpagearticles
• Feeding Ourselves: Organic Urban Gardens in Caracas, Venezuela resp Homepage Toward Freedom
• England Poised to Reform Legal Market resp Homepage Law.com
• Russian Time in London, Alternative Investment resp Homepage Kommersant
• Time is Running Out for the U.S.A. Who is Bankrupting America? How Felix Rohatyn Destroyed American Industry, Paid Ad with Endorsements: Congress Must Launch Emergency Economic Action Now! resp Homepage The Peoples Voice

Links on our Blogs:

• Japan and Islamic Financing, June 19, 2006
• World Economy – Tendencies and Tensions, May 28, 2006
• Articles on Economy, May 11, 2006
• Report on the international situation, May 09, 2006
• More about Global Economy, April 07, 2006
• The ABCs of the Global Economy, April 06, 2006
• Corporate America’s New Golden Rules, March 12, 2006
• how Western Financiers Caused the Asia Crisis, February 19, 2006
• Economy and Islam – on Islam Online, February 16, 2006
• Some books about Economy and Poverty, February 10, 2006
• Thematic axes of the WSF 2006, January 26, 2006
• op-icescr and Economy & Society, November 23, 2005
• E.U. Plans for Alternative Energy, Octopber 13, 2005
• ParEcon – A Participatory Economy, August 26, 2006

Linked with JOSÉ ANTONIO OCAMPO – Colombia, and with Promoting the Rights, Voices and Visions of Indigenous Peoples, and with Official development aid grows, but not enough to meet goals, and with Indigenous Webs for Information, and with Texts about Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights.

First the definition of what Indigenous Peoples are, on wikipedia,
and ciesin.org.

Sites, reports and articles:

• APFT Pilot report: THE SITUATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN TROPICAL FORESTS, by Serge Bahuchet Editions.
• Aboriginal Studies of the WWW Virtual Library.
• The Internet Guide to Aboriginal Studies.
• Circumpolar People’s Virtual Library.
• Indigenous peoples in Brazil.
• Indigenous peoples and mining encounters.
• Globalization from below meets globalization from above?
• A background paper of the Economic and Social Council.
• Indigenous peoples and the third way.
• Indigenous people’s perception of poverty.
• C169 Indigenous and Tribal People’s Convention 1989, The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation.
• International Cooperation.
• Indigenous peoples and economic progress.
• Public health and indigenous peoples.
• Inter American Development Bank and indigenous peoples.
• book: Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Human Development in Latin America, by Gillette Hall and Harry Anthony Patrinos, December 2005, palgrave.

Study Three Years Later Shows Cola Companies Have Done Nothing to Improve Quality. For Immediate Release, August 3, 2006.

Contacts: Souparno Banerjee, Centre for Science and Environment (India) +91 11 29955124, +91 11 29955125, E-mail, Amit Srivastava, India Resource Center (US) +1 415 336 7584, E-mail.

San Francisco (August 3, 2006): Coca-Cola and Pepsico carbonated drinks in India contain dangerously high levels of pesticides, according to a new study released yesterday by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a leading public interest research and advocacy group in India.

CSE tested 57 samples of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo carbonated products from 25 different bottling plants across 12 states and found pesticide residues in all samples.

The study found a “cocktail of between three to five different pesticides in all samples” – and on an average, the pesticide residues were 24 times higher than European Union (EU) standards and those proposed by the Bureau of India Standards (BIS), the government body responsible for standardization and quality control.

The study found high levels of:

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Linked with Annie Lacroix-Riz – France, and with Axis for Peace 2005, and with … Radio France Culture de Février 2004.

Le titre complet est ‘Les industriels et financiers français sous Vichy, Argent et zyklon B – la revue d’un ministère censure une historienne’, par Gilles Smadja (reproduction interdite).

C’est l’histoire d’une censure. La censure d’une historienne. Une femme de 49 ans, normalienne à 19, agrégée à 22, thésarde à 34. Annie Lacroix-Riz est professeur d’histoire contemporaine à l’université de Toulouse. C’est son histoire. Celle d’une censure dans ‘Etudes et Documents’, revue annuelle du ministère de l’Economie et des Finances. Lequel délègue le pilotage de cette revue à un comité d’histoire. Lequel comité fonctionne avec deux commissions. L’une est administrative. L’autre, constituée d’historiens et d’économistes, décide de la publication des textes. Le champ de recherche investi inclut la période 1940-1944. ‘La plus délicate’, dit-on au comité … / …

… / … Elle n’a donc rien dit publiquement. A peine s’en est-elle ouverte discrètement à des historiens qu’elle estime. C’est ainsi que son texte est parvenu aux Editions La Découverte. François Gèze l’a lu. ‘Nous avons renoncé à le publier, nous explique-t-il, pour des raisons trivialement commerciales, mais également parce que son caractère très universitaire n’aurait pas permis d’atteindre un large public, alors que le sujet le mérite. Cela dit, ce travail est intéressant, il apporte beaucoup de choses originales, et ce qu’a subi son auteur n’est pas acceptable. D’autant plus qu’il existe un véritable retard de l’historiographie française sur cette période. Et c’est encore pire sur la guerre d’Algérie.’ Pour rompre le silence, le déclic est venu de la fac. Deux lettres dans son casier en juillet dernier. Expéditeurs anonymes, simple mention ‘Shoah business’ sur une enveloppe. A l’intérieur, insultes et menaces en guise de réponse à son article sur ‘l’Eglise et les juifs’, paru très récemment dans ‘Golias’, un magazine qui revendique un catholicisme très à gauche. A l’intérieur encore, la reprise d’un texte du révisionniste Faurisson, dédié à ‘Annie Lacroix-Riz, qui voudrait nous faire croire que les prétendues chambres à gaz ne sont pas un mensonge hollywoodien, une formidable arnaque juive qui a besoin d’une loi Gayssot pour se maintenir…’

C’était trop. Alors elle a décidé de tout dire. (Lisez ce long article sur ‘les pages personelles de Michel Fingerhut‘).

Linked with Annie Lacroix-Riz – France, and with Axis for Peace 2005, and with Vichy, Argent et zyklon B en 1940-44.

Interview à Radio France d’Annie Lacroix-Riz, par J- M Schiappa:

Jean Marc Schiappa : Nous recevons Annie Lacroix-Riz, professeur d´histoire contemporaine à Paris VII, auteur de: ‘Le Vatican, l´Europe et le Reich’ (ed.A.Colin), afin qu´elle nous dise ce que furent les relations du Vatican et du nazisme… Mercredi en huit, TF1 a diffusé un téléfilm, sur la montée au pouvoir de Hitler. Or le contexte international n´était pas évoqué, l´URSS pas mentionnée. Il n´était pas fait mention des partis ouvrier et social – démocrate. Bref, ce ne fut qu´une personnalisation, le nazisme se réduisant à Hitler.

Annie Lacroix -Riz : Ce film est médiocre, voire scandaleux quant à ses carences historiques. Il néglige l´importance tant de l´armée que de la bourgeoisie qui furent les états majeurs sans lesquels les hitlériens ne seraient pas parvenus au pouvoir. Ainsi Röhm, fondateur des S.A, était capitaine. C´est l´armée qui a entretenu et, au sens propre, armé les hommes de main des S.A. L´armée a vu dans le nazisme, le moyen de lever tous les obstacles au désarmement et de déclencher la guerre. Elle entend trouver le moyen de recruter dès lors que le désarmement deviendra effectif. Pour autant, elle ne manquera pas de se débarrasser, le moment venu, de ses concurrents : d´où la fameuse nuit des Longs couteaux. Il reste que la masse des S.A est un des éléments de cette logique de réarmement.

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Linked with our presentations of James K. Galbraight – USA, and of The University of Texas’ Inequality Project UTIP, and of Economists for Peace and Security.

By James K. Galbraith, September 2004, Washington Monthly – Next year’s economic difficulties are already on the horizon. Growth is slowing as the housing market cools and consumers rein in their spending. Inflation is rising a bit, driven mainly by oil prices, health care costs, and corporate price increases, fueling a spectacular recent profit surge. Job creation is weak, and wages are flat. This is the new stagflation–an unpleasant reminder of the economic cost of unilateral war.
But George W. Bush has never tried to fix the economy in the short term. His focus is on making long-term–and, he hopes, irreversible–changes to taxes and social programs; foreign policy; and the government’s capacity to regulate the environment, natural resource use, and corporate behavior.

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