People Before Profit blog

The “Caracazo” Uprising in Pictures

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:22:00 +0000

2-27-09, 3:13 pm

Venezuela commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the “Caracazo”

Friday, February 27th, 2009 marks the twentieth anniversary of Venezuela’s popular upheaval against the imposition of neoliberal shock policies by the second government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. Known as “El Caracazo”, this historical upheaval mobilized over 1 million people around the country and was brutally repressed by the government at the time, leaving thousands of Venezuelans dead, according to human rights groups. Although the government of Perez claimed the death toll to be around 400 people, independent investigators have claimed that the death toll could have reached as many as 10,000. Venezuelans still do not know the exact death toll of that day. Known victims have been compensated by the government of President Hugo Chavez Frías.

In the aftermath of “El Caracazo”, many Venezuelans were detained, harassed and tortured, as the government sought the phantom culprits which had allegedly organized this act. The government of the time, out of touch with the realities on the ground, failed to understand that the events of 27 February 1989 were a spontaneous combustion from a society which had grown tired of social, economic and political exclusion and was being asked, through the IMF-imposed policies, to sacrifice even more. For the majority of Venezuelans that had been historically excluded, these measures made it impossible to buy food and have access to basic services, such as transportation.

The Caracazo is a key historical event in Venezuela’s contemporary history. It represents the watershed of the popular movement that, a decade later, brought President Hugo Chávez into the presidency. This movement demanded a new social, political and economic order that was later enshrined, by popular vote, in the 1999 Constitution.

After twenty years of “El Caracazo” and ten years since the approval by popular vote of the 1999 Constitution, human rights advances in Venezuela are visible and undeniable. These advances are found not just in the area of civil rights, but also in economic and social rights for all Venezuelans.

The reduction of extreme poverty from 20.7 percent in 1999 to 9.5 percent in 2007 and the reduction of poverty from 42 percent to 38 percent are just two examples. Examples also include sound economic policies that have managed to reduce public debt from 30.6 percent of gross domestic product in 1998 to 13.5 percent in 2008. Most importantly, Venezuelans commitment to democracy as their preferred system of government as measured by LATINOBAROMETRO 2008, and the recent and unprecedented level of political participation, where as many as 70 percent of the electorate has participated in 15 electoral processes in 10 years under one of the most advanced electoral systems in the world, are real proof of the great advances made by Venezuela over the past decade.

To commemorate this historical event, and in memory of the thousands of compatriots who died at the hand of security forces on that eventful day twenty years ago, the Embassies of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Washington, DC and London have prepared the following material that we gladly share with you.

From the Embassy of Venezuela

Why 'Buy American' is Good Policy: An Interview with Scott Marshall

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:24:00 +0000

3-31-09, 11:00 am

Editor's note: Scott Marshall, interviewed here, is the chair of the Labor Commission of the Communist Party USA.

PA: I know you followed the stimulus bill as it was going through the legislative process pretty closely. One of the provisions in the bill was the so-called Buy American provision. Could you talk about what that is and who supported it?

SCOTT MARSHALL: Basically the labor movement supported it. The Buy American provision was changed a couple of times, but in its initial form it mandated that public projects in the stimulus package receiving tax dollars must have some domestic content. In other words, if you were building a highway, you would buy the cement, the rebar steel, and other things needed for that highway manufactured by corporations in the United States. Later this was changed to stipulate that all manufacturing goods used for public works projects under the stimulus package must be purchased in the United States.

PA: So that’s the final version as it is now?

MARSHALL: That’s the final version – at the federal level – but a lot of this money is going to be spent at the local level, of course, in states and municipalities. These bodies are supposed to abide by the federal guidelines, but they also have flexibility. For example, if you have a project in a city and no one makes the widget you need for that project, then you can buy it anywhere. But if it is available for purchase from a manufacturing company in this country, then you need to buy it from that company.

PA: The measure did face some strong opposition. Who opposed it and why?

MARSHALL: Much of the opposition came from the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce, along with other industry groups, although not all. Some of the industry associations also supported it. But basically the fiercest opposition was from the National Association of Manufactures and the Chamber of Commerce. The reasons are obvious. A huge portion of their members have moved production overseas and now operate factories in third-world and developing countries, including China, where they went for cheap labor and relaxed environmental standards – and then they reimport those goods. So they were very much against the provision to buy goods manufactured in the US. Of course, that’s not what they said. What they said was that this is all protectionism, that it would ruin trade and make the economy even worse. Those were the main forces opposing the 'Buy American' provision.

Now, I have to say that there are quite a few people on the left and some in labor who opposed it too – I think in large part because of previous experiences around Buy American campaigns. I do want to make the point that I think the choice of the term Buy American is unfortunate, because I think it clouds the issue with past campaigns. The Buy American campaign of the late 70s and early 80s really was a very different animal, and almost all on the left opposed it and rightfully so, because then it was a question of basically shilling for the US corporations. It promoted jingoism. By the way, let me just say that that is part of the problem of calling it the Buy American campaign, because it opens the door to a phony kind of nationalism which I think is harmful to the labor movement and harmful to the people's movement in general.

But I want to make the point that I think there are important differences between the present labor-supported Buy American provision and the previous company-led campaign. One thing that is really different is that none of this is about erecting tariffs – none of this is about erecting barriers to trade. Another argument used that is untrue is that it violates trade agreements. It does not violate any trade agreements to have a domestic content provision in the stimulus. The domestic content measure in terms of where the tax dollars in the stimulus are spent is, by the way, not a policy that is unusual in any country that is trying stimulus. Every country that has a stimulus plan has a domestic content part of that spending, including China and the developing countries, but also including the industrial countries, Britain, Germany and France, etc.

PA: It simply seems to be about this: If taxpayers are going to pay for something, it ought to benefit local communities first. It seems that that is what this kind of project is about now.

MARSHALL: That’s right.

PA: One alternative to the 'Buy American' concept that some people have proposed is 'Buy Union,' buy products that are made by union workers. What do you think of that idea?

MARSHALL: I think it is exactly right, and I wish we were at a point in terms of international solidarity that we could go with that. We should be aiming in that direction definitely. 'Buy Union' would be a much better slogan and a much better way of moving things in a new direction. But again, in the present stimulus package, I don’t think it violates any principle to say that tax dollars ought to be spent for something here in the US. I don’t think that is in violation of any international agreement. As for 'Buy Union,' even for domestic content, yes, if it can be bought union, it should be bought union, absolutely. I think that’s a good idea.

I would like to also mention a parallel thing that has gone on. During the talks on the auto bailout, people who supported the bailout took to calling Southern senators who were opposing it “the Senator from Toyota,” because there were foreign-owned auto companies in their states – which is really ridiculous, because those people care just as much for any kind of capitalist enterprise. They weren’t particularly championing Toyota. They were championing non-union. They were championing the fact that these plants had moved to their states because they were non-union states and because they were non-union plants. That was a real misnomer. They should have been called the Senators from Non-Union States, not the Senators from Toyota.

PA: One other objection I have heard is that the economic crisis is global in nature, so that taking an approach that focuses on a single country’s economy may either exacerbate the economic situation in other countries or fail to have a global effect. Have you heard that?

MARSHALL: Well, I have heard variations of that. The problem with this argument is that there is no way at this point in time – in terms of how governments, how labor, how capital is organized – to have an overall stimulus plan that affects every country. That just doesn’t exist, and there is no way for one country, and certainly not one with the United States’ record of imperialism and economic plunder around the world, to build such a consensus or develop such a plan. So what you are left with then, according to this point of view, is that if we cannot do that, then we shouldn’t do anything here either. And that’s ridiculous.

The other side of this is that many of the key players in the global economy are implementing stimulus programs. I think that is all for the good, and that is much closer to getting us to some kind of balance in the world crisis. Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration is the difference between the bank bailout and the stimulus package. The stimulus programs around the world that are going to have a real impact on the crisis are ones that build up their their country's productive capacity and provide sustainable economic development. I know, for example, there are big discussions in China about how basing their productive capacity and growth on exports is not sustainable, and that what they really have to do in China, in order to develop a sustainable economy, is to raise the living standards of the working class and increase domestic consumption. That is what they are doing with their stimulus. Their stimulus package is almost all aimed at infrastructure, health care, and the internal development of their economy for their own use. In the US, unfortunately, the jobs and infrastructure side of the stimulus plan is not as big as it should be, but it is still a huge part of our stimulus package. Most other countries have stimulus packages that are similar to ours. There needs to be more spending on jobs and infrastructure going forward. That needs to happen, and I think that’s the way things are going to go. But how can we control that international situation? To say that the 'Buy American' clause stops that, that is preposterous.

PA: One final thing. The stimulus package finally passed in the Senate after an arduous fingernail-biting couple of weeks. Could you give a brief assessment of the victories and setbacks that have occurred in the legislative process, and your assessment of the possible outcomes? I know that is hard to predict, but what is your preliminary thinking about the impact of the stimulus package?

MARSHALL: I think the most important impact actually might be political, in the sense that you’ve got huge majority support in the country for the idea that we have to spend money to build our infrastructure and to rebuild our country, and that is what will get us out of this mess. I saw a poll yesterday that shows 60 percent support the package – and that is why people support it. I think the battle for it was actually good in a number of ways. You saw the enthusiasm, optimism and drive that elected Obama – in the labor movement, for sure, and almost all the other movements, turned toward the fight for the stimulus. I think people got a lot of experience in the process, and it was a big victory. It also shows the bankruptcy of the Republicans. Such a strict party line, except for three people in the Senate, is just an incredible display of the lack of any kind of understanding of where people are in this country, what they feel about this crisis, and what they think needs to be done.

I think that some of the tactics Obama and Congress used on this did hurt the bill. The bill is not as good as it could be. On the other hand, it sure opened a lot of people’s eyes and sure drew a line in the sand about who is fighting for the people and who is not. I think that bodes well for the future. I suspect that it won’t be long until we will have to reconsider more stimulus, particularly in infrastructure. We took hits in terms of schools and some other areas. One of the things I felt worst about was that there was not enough money for mass transit, because I came out of the railroad industry and building railcars. I think that is an extremely important part of any modern infrastructure that is going to serve the further development of the country, especially green jobs and all of that kind of thing. So we took some hits there, but I think it was a really good experience. And I do think it is going to do good. Like you say, none of us, especially those of us who are not trained economists, can predict exactly how things are going to go, but it makes sense to me that this is going to save and create a lot of jobs. I think the stabilization part for the states is also going to help a lot. But it is going to be an ongoing fight, and the next part is going to be a fight over how that stimulus money is actually spent on the ground and how quickly it gets into the system. I think that will be a big political fight.

Pics: Strawberry Workers in Santa Maria, Calif.

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:59:00 +0000

2-27-09, 9:49 am

SANTA MARIA, CA - 16FEBRUARY09 – Guillermina Arzola, a Mixtec immigrant from San Sebastian del Monte in Oaxaca, works in a crew of indigenous Mixtec and Zapotec farm workers from Oaxaca and Guerrero picking strawberries. The crew foreman is Eugenio Cardenas of the Central Coast company, and the berries will be marketed by Green Giant. It is the beginning of the strawberry season in Santa Maria. Workers stand in line to bring the berries they've picked to the checker. He inspects them and then punches a ticket that keeps track of the number of boxes each worker has picked. Three Zapotec farmworkers from Santa Maria Sola in Oaxaca walk out of the field, after having asked if there was any work.

In Santa Maria many Mixtec and Zapotec families live in an apartment complex, and children play in the yard in front. Most are new migrants with very low lncome, and haven't yet found much work. In the apartment of Samuel Ramirez, his wife Juana Lopez, and their children Adela and Maria there is little furniture besides mattresses, a table and a couple of chairs, and a TV. Leobarda Hernandez is the oldest, most respected woman in the Hernandez family next door.

--David Bacon is the author of Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants and Communities Without Borders.

Obama's Military Response in Afghanistan not the Path MLK Would Walk

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:52:00 +0000

2-27-09, 9:43 am

“Because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens half a world away” is the reason President Obama gave for forging “a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan…” Yet Americans, in their anger over 9/11, need to ask if subjecting Afghanistan to escalating conflict in order to bring Osama bin Laden to justice and/or punish the Taliban, is the way to go about it.

If past is prologue, once the Pentagon’s war machine revs up, there will be a wave of new civilian casualties, more wedding parties slaughtered on misinformation, more children killed in their beds, more hospitals bombed by accident, more people that want to live just as much as you and I do who will never see another sunrise. Since 2006, according to a report in The Nation magazine, US-NATO bombings have increased, tripling the number of civilians killed, and up to 500 Afghan civilians are dying monthly from US cluster bombs, “most of them children and teenage boys.”

Hasn’t Afghanistan suffered enough? Back in the 1980s, when the CIA was arming Osama bin Laden and the Taliban against the Soviets, the fighting turned Kabul, “once a major center of Islamic culture, into a facsimile of Hiroshima after the bomb,” author Chalmers Johnson writes in “Blowback”(Henry Holt).

The US already has 32,000 troops, and its NATO allies 30,000 more, in Afghanistan, and the Obama Administration proposes to deploy another 30,000 soldiers there. “What the hell is he (Obama) thinking!?!” ask Editors Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer in the February “The Hightower Lowdown.” They argue Obama risks “bleeding his words about peace and world leadership” uttered in his Inaugural Address “of all substance.” If the US objective is to stop terrorists from using Afghanistan as a safe haven, escalating the military’s presence there “is not the best way to achieve this goal,” they point out.

“Instead of more air strikes on Afghan villages,” Hightower and Frazer write, “let’s seek more collaboration with (and give more support to) tribal leaders, citizen groups, and regular folks who reject violence; let’s fund locals to build their own schools and clinics; let’s enlist more American teachers, nurses, carpenters, and others to help provide humanitarian aid; and let’s seek a true regional coalition to take the lead on security, with as little American military visibility as possible.” This sounds like a prescription for the Peace Corps, not the Pentagon. Yet Obama’s “new and comprehensive” strategy appears to be largely military.

The US is already pumping $2 billion a month directly into Afghanistan that goes for “killing and destruction,” (and more funds indirectly through NATO,) Lowdown notes. “Our money has bought little real development and won few friends.” That’s because Bush “privatized the effort, issuing no-bid Halliburton-style contracts to such politically connected corporate profiteers as DynCorp, Bearing Point, and Louis Berger Group. The result has been a nightmare of shoddy work, missing funds, and more Afghan anger.”

After eight years of fruitless, and illegal military action that has not succeeded in capturing bin Laden in Afghanistan and has made everyday life unbearable for the people of Iraq, it would be refreshing for USA to show the Middle East it has a Peace Corps and that this nation can do an honest job of rebuilding and reconstruction. How novel it would be for the US to commit tens of thousands of Peace Corps volunteers, not GIs, to a grand assignment.

USA at last has a brilliant politician in the White House capable of using the arts of diplomacy to the fullest. If his response to long-suffering Afghanistan follows the cruel and pig-headed approach of his predecessor, he will doom thousands of Afghans and his presidency as well.

If he truly reveres the example of Martin Luther King, Obama will forge a non-violent response in Afghanistan that will lead to a peaceful resolution. King strongly opposed the illegal war in Viet Nam and, had he lived, he undoubtedly would have opposed the illegal wars USA is waging today. Americans who celebrate King's birthday but do not stand up against those wars only pay lip-service to his ideals. Those who knew Rev. King know there is no way he would walk the perilous road Obama is in danger of taking.

--Sherwood Ross, who formerly reported for the Chicago Daily News and worked in a professional capacity in the civil rights movement, is a Miami-based media consultant for good causes. Further Information: Sherwood Ross at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com.

A Short Story on Film

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:33:00 +0000

2-27-09, 9:24 am

Movie Review: Auf der Strecke [On The Line] Directed by Reto Caffi, 2009

Rolf is a Swiss-born security guard in a German department story. He becomes totally infatuated with Sarah, the store's book seller. The problem is that she doesn’t know it. He just follows her every movement on the store's security cameras.

Rolf resolves shop-lifting issues at the store with a gentler touch than his colleague and seems generally not very happy with his job. He is often distracted by Sarah, and he actually becomes her stalker.

Rolf as constructed an imaginary world in which he “arranges” to see Sarah. He knows precisely when she will leave the store and always makes sure to get on the same train going home. He is hopeful that on the next “rendezvous” on the Metro train after work that something real may happen between them, but this time she enters the train with another guy.

What comes after that is a quick turn of events that have you glued to the screen.

Auf der Strecke (On the Line) is Philippe Zweifel's and Reto Caffi's masterful screenplay, the latter of whom also directs the film.

Roeland Wiesnekker plays Rolf. He has a familiar face, but his many film credits show that none of the films he has worked on have been released in the US. New actor Catherine Janke plays Sarah. Both Wiesnekker and Janke deliver excellent portrayals of this unlikely couple.

This critically acclaimed, 30-minute movie earned an Academy Award nomination for “Short Live Action Film.” While it didn’t win, it probably will join all of the other short films in the unfortunate world of not being seeing in major distribution areas.

This prestigious Oscar nomination is the climax in the impressive life of the short film Auf der Strecke. It has been honored with 50 awards, including the Swiss Film Prize 2008 (Quartz for Best Short Film), the Grand Prix 2008 at the International Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, the Lutin 2008 Best European Short Film [A French Award] and the Student Oscar (Honorary Foreign Film Student Award).

The 37 year-old director Reto Caffi is a graduate of the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany, which produced the film with co-producers Blush Films (in Zurich) and Swiss Television. This was Caffi’s graduation film.

View the film's trailer and learn more about it here:

A Good-bye Kiss to the Blockade?

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:30:00 +0000

3-31-09, 11:00 am

Original source: CubaNews

“The embargo on Cuba has been in place for almost 50 years. Although it may have been an appropriate policy response to the Cuban Revolution in the milieu of the Cold War, the reality of the 21st century calls for its abolishment.”

That assertion is made in article by Colonel Glenn Alex Crowther entitled “Kiss the Embargo Goodbye,” published in the [February 2009] monthly newsletter of the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the US Army War College, a branch of the US government’s Defense Department.

“It is time to kiss the embargo goodbye, while maintaining an unyielding stance that democracy is the only acceptable form of government in the Western Hemisphere,” the article states, thereby reasserting a supposed US right, recognized by no one else, to determine what form of government its neighbors should have.

According to Colonel Crowther’s interpretation of the history of Cuba: “On January 1, 1959, in the wake of several notable victories by insurgents, the dictator Batista fled Cuba for exile. His government, isolated from both the Cuban people and the US Government because of its repressive policies, collapsed. Fidel arrived in Havana on January 9, 1959. He and his comrades took power in the face of a total government vacuum.”

Crowther states that “the United States initially responded in a conciliatory manner; however, mutual antipathy prevented rapprochement. The United States responded with support for the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Cuba then allowed the Soviet Union to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. Fidel also initiated a policy of exporting revolution to the rest of the Western Hemisphere and a few countries in Africa. His Argentine lieutenant, Ernest ‘Che’ Guevara, promised ‘one, two, one hundred [sic] Vietnams.’”

Later, according to Crowther, the triumph of the Sandinistas against the dictator Somoza was the only confirmation of the Cuban theory of guerrilla foco, which, nonetheless failed in Nicaragua because the US intervened to defeat the revolutionaries, and it continued to intervene throughout Latin America against all “fidelista-inspired revolutions.”

In this context, “it was not surprising that the United States sought to punish the Cuban regime. Among other responses, the United States declared a commercial, economic and financial embargo on Cuba on February 7, 1962.” The immediate justification “was the expropriation of properties owned by US corporations and citizens; however the long-term goal was to destabilize Cuba and hopefully cause regime change.”

The author asserts that because of the support that the Soviet Union gave to Cuba, the blockade could not overthrow the revolution, but it did succeed in doing great damage to the Cubans and preventing them from providing “even more support to world-wide revolutions.” During the Cold War, one of the tactics used by the United States to wear down the USSR was to force it to provide aid to Cuba, and that motive for the embargo has lessened with the end of the Cold War.

In Crowther’s opinion, “the only reasons for supporting the embargo” are: (1) to force Cuba to reform and (2) to accede to the demands of the Cuban community in Miami. They were the ones who argued in favor of the 1992 Torricelli Law (the Cuban Democracy Act) and the 1996 Helms-Burton Act (Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act), aimed at bolstering the blockade.

The first reason, the need to keep up the pressure to force Cuba to reform, has “manifestly failed,” writes Crowther. “Not only did the embargo fail,” the article states, “but it is not in step with our policy towards other communist regimes who were our opponents during the Cold War,” citing the examples of China, Vietnam, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The second reason, the desire of Miami Cubans to maintain the embargo, “has slowly gone the way of the Cold War,” Crowther writes, and notes that the positions of the Cuban diaspora regarding ties with their country of origin have become more variegated.

He adds, as if this were a great discovery, that the blockade increases the Cuban people’s mobilization against US intervention in their internal affairs, although he justifies this with the old lies that portray the Cuban defensive actions as the “tyranny” of “the Castro regime.”

Lifting the blockade, he states, would project the US before the international community as “magnanimous and inclusive. Maintaining it makes us look petty and vindictive to the rest of the world.”

The article’s author, a Research Professor of National Security Studies at the US Army’s Strategic Studies Institute, argues that “we cannot convince anyone that Cuba is a threat to the United States, nor can we make the case internationally that more of the same will have a positive impact. Lifting the blockade would signal that we are ready to try something different” to achieve change.

Crowther assumes that as soon as the blockade is lifted the market for US goods and services will open up, and he dreams of a bourgeoisified and consumerist society that will covet US appliances and gadgets when the blockade ends, as happened “in Iraq in 2003.”

It is outrageous that there are those who call for lifting the blockade, not because for a half century it has been an unjustifiable crime committed against the Cuban people, but rather because it has been ineffective in achieving the foul aims that gave rise to it.

--A CubaNews translation by Will Reissner. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Venezuela Solid Despite Global Crisis

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:23:00 +0000

2-27-09, 9:14 am

Original source:

(Venezuelanalysis.com) -- Venezuelan Finance Minister Alí Rodríguez announced Wednesday that Venezuela is in a strong position to weather the global financial crisis for at least three years if oil prices remain at their current level, and that Venezuela will propose a new reduction in oil production at a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) next month.

'In comparison with other countries, Venezuela is in much better conditions to confront the crisis, although this does not mean that we are unaffected by the crisis,' said Rodríguez in a televised interview. 'We can sustain the economy for three more years without great sacrifices.'

Rodríguez said Venezuela's bi-national investment funds with China and Iran, its $42 billion in international reserves, and the $57 billion already earmarked for projects through its National Development Fund will help the country sustain its growth in coming years.

Regarding the viability of the government's extensive public works and social programs, Rodríguez said, 'The socialist policies of the national economy do not depend on the price of oil or if the country has a lot or a little income.'

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has also asserted that Venezuela will make the necessary adjustments in order to maintain its commitment to social programming even if the price of oil drops further.

Possible adjustments that are being considered are a devaluation of Venezuela's currency and an increase in domestic gasoline prices. Since 2003, Venezuela has kept a pegged exchange rate and exchange controls on its currency to cheapen imports and prevent capital flight, and subsidized domestic gasoline to stimulate the economy and keep oil accessible to all Venezuelans.

However, changes to these policies must be considered with great caution, said Rodríguez. 'If we decide to devalue, automatically imports get more expensive, at a time when we still have high levels of inflation,' the minister explained.

Rodríguez said a key component of the government's economic policy in coming years will be to increase national food production. He said the private sector is 'necessary' for this endeavor, and that 'it would be good to develop a dialogue' with private businesses that are willing to accept the 'social character' of the government's economic policies.

Venezuela's greatest vulnerability will be volatile oil prices, which peaked at close to $150 per barrel last July but have averaged $36 this year and recently rose above $40, said Rodríguez. Oil accounts for more than 90% of Venezuela's exports, and the government's 2009 budget is based on an estimated $60 average price per barrel of oil.

To stabilize the price of oil, Venezuela will propose an OPEC supply reduction, Rodríguez affirmed. 'In the next meeting of OPEC, jointly with other countries and in accordance with what the supply monitoring committee reports, Venezuela will propose new cuts if necessary,' he said.

Since the onset of the global financial crisis with the collapse of U.S. mortgage firms last year, OPEC has cut back its supply twice, by 1.5 million barrels per day last October and 2.2 million barrels per day in January.

Minister Rodríguez is one of the Venezuelan Left's main oil industry experts, having served on the oil issues committee in congress before Chávez's election in 1999, and as Minister of Energy and Mining, OPEC President, and president of the state oil company PDVSA under the Chávez administration.

Prominent Economists Urge Passage of Pro-union Law

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:59:00 +0000

More than three dozen prominent economists, including a handful of Nobel Laureates, this week signed a joint statement urging passage of the Employee Free Choice Act as an effective measure to boost middle-class living standards and revive the worsening economy.

The statement noted that joining unions is a 'natural response' by workers to stagnating wages and a weakened economy. Recent polls show that tens of millions of non-managerial workers would like to see a union in their workplace, but less than eight percent of private sector workers are union members.

Pro-union workers face often illegal recriminations and threats from employers on a large scale, which explains the discrepancy between the desire for unions and the low rate of unionization, the statement pointed out.

Labor laws designed to protect workers from illegal harassment by anti-union employers are weakly enforced by federal agencies and the process of certifying a union can be delayed by employers for years using bureaucratic red tape. Especially under the Bush administration, agencies like the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sided with employers most often or failed to penalize scofflaw employers.

Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), likely to be introduced in Congress later this year, will change this situation, the economists said. It would revise labor law to even the playing field. Under this law, workers will have a choice between using a majority sign-up process or an NLRB election to certify their union.

The law would impose stiffer penalties on employers who violate the law, providing them with incentive to treat workers fairly.

EFCA would also eliminate costly federal procedures for unionization by speeding up the process of mediation and arbitration between workers and employers once a union is certified.

The statement further added, 'A rising tide lifts all boats only when labor and management bargain on relatively equal terms. In recent decades, most bargaining power has resided with management. The current recession will further weaken the ability of workers to bargain individually. More than ever, workers will need to act together.'

“Creating good union jobs is key to our economic recovery because it strengthens our middle class,” said Mike Fishman, president of Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, based in New York. “The Employee Free Choice Act would break down the wall that has stopped millions of workers from joining unions, improving their lives and giving our economy the boost it needs.”

The statement by the leading economists was published in the Washington Post, Feb. 25.

Global Vehicle Industry: A Question of Survival

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:29:00 +0000

2-26-09, 11:20 am

Original source: The Guardian (Australia)

On Monday February 16, 400 workers were stood down for a week in Albury, on the Victorian border, as their employer went into receivership. On the Friday they learnt that it would be for another week at least, and that many of them would not be coming back to work. They are now fighting for their jobs and $25 million of termination and redundancy entitlements that the administrator says the company does not have.

Feelings are also running strong throughout the community as Drivetrain Systems International (DSI), a manufacturer of gearboxes for motor vehicles, is a major regional employer with a long history in the town. After being stood down, the workers established a 24-hour picket. Their union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), has called on the federal government to help them.

As recently as the end of last year, when rumors were flying about the company’s future, the company assured them that their entitlements were secure. Now they have joined the many thousands of people around the world in the vehicle industry and their communities whose future livelihoods are in doubt.

The workers at DSI are determined to fight for their jobs and rights. The strength of feeling and importance to the local community is reflected in the local tabloid, the Border Mail which gave four to five pages of coverage including the front page under the headline “Dark Day”. This is on top of prominent reportage throughout the week following first stand-downs.

DSI, which had concentrated on the export market, came undone when its major customer, the Korean car maker Ssang Yong went into receivership in January. At its peak around 20 years ago, the business had 1,200 employees.

Successive changes in ownership at DSI have seen the number reduced to its present 400. Its workforce is highly skilled, with a very low rate of turnover. Some workers have been there as long as 35 years, and it is not uncommon for several members of the same family to be employed there. Any further cuts to its operations or its closure will be a huge blow to Albury as well as those directly affected. Job prospects for those sacked are extremely bleak, particularly its older workforce, in the current economic situation.

The closure of the company would also be a serious loss to the skills base of manufacturing in Australia. It does everything from design, engineering, to manufacturing the final product, light-weight aluminum gearboxes.

The administrators are attempting to re-establish DSI on a profitable footing so that it could be sold as an ongoing business, with a workforce slashed by half or even more. The administrator has indicated that sacked workers will have to apply for the federal government’s GEER scheme for any entitlements.

The legal entitlements of DSI workers include accrued annual leave, accrued untaken sick leave, all long service leave, outstanding wages and redundancy payment of three weeks pay for every year of service.

Under GEERS, there are strict limits on payments which fall far short of present entitlements. The most serious of these is the cap of 16 weeks wages for redundancy and no provision for accrued sick leave entitlements.

A worker with 30 years at the company stands to lose $90,000 to $100,000 of entitlements if denied their rights and left to the sink in the GEERS “safety net”. Those forced into retirement and looking to superannuation face another blow and serious loss following the massive hammering these funds have received during the financial crisis.

Global crisis

“It is a local industry caught up in broader global circumstances. Very weak domestic sales are leading to real problems with the standing down of workers in auto plants or non-production plants,” national assistant secretary of the Vehicle Division of the AMWU David Smith told The Guardian.

In Australia, the vehicle industry directly employs somewhere in the region of 12,000-15,000 people with another 30,000-50,000 in the manufacture of component parts. All of them are in trouble as overseas and domestic demand continues to contract.

Some component manufacturers have put their workforce on a four-day week in response to falling sales. Toyota has scheduled in 22 non-production days over the next couple of months. During that time workers will receive additional training. The impact of those non-productive days will be felt by component suppliers. Holden and Ford are also expected to cut hours as they further cut production.

In the USA, where the auto industry is the backbone of what remains of its manufacturing sector, the three major auto companies are battling for survival. Domestic sales were a steady 16 to 17 million on the vehicle market. Now, the industry is debating whether they will sell 10 to 12 million this year.

Holden has plans to speed up the closure of its 4-cylinder plant at Port Melbourne, as its parent General Motors in the US is fighting off possible bankruptcy. It has already been thrown a lifeline of US$13.4 billion (AU$20.9 billion) in emergency loans and is back begging for more. It plans to sack another 47,000 workers around the world, some in Australia.

Its US competitor Chrysler is also pleading for additional government assistance and has announced further job losses – 3,000 more for now. Ford does not look to be in any better shape.

There is more that the government could do to support component manufacturers. For example, make assistance to the car makers conditional on greater local content. Toyota, for example, is importing gearboxes. DSI is highly competitive; it must be to have been able to sell on the Korean market.

Protect workers’ entitlements

The GEERS scheme, set up by the former Howard government, would be a joke if it were not so serious. DSI is not the first company where workers’ entitlements have gone up in smoke and there are thousands more similar tragedies in the pipeline.

Unions have fought for greater protection for redundancy and retirement savings. Some gains have been made in particular industries, such as to protect long service leave and make it transferable.

Universal protection is required, and urgently. It is time the government set up a national scheme where employers who were not part of an industry scheme were obliged to make regular payments to ensure that workers’ entitlements are secure.

Mr Smith said that the government’s $6.4 billion package is very good for the industry in that it provides a lot of incentives to develop new technologies. “If the economy starts to grow it will provide the incentives … Today the question is of survival, to get to that point.”

Would You Go to Jail to Protest Torture?

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:27:00 +0000

2-26-09, 11:18 am

Are you ready to go to jail for what you believe? Would you stand up to the Pentagon by engaging in non-violent civil disobedience to protest torture?

Two men of faith who have done so, who have walked the same road of Mohandas Gandhi and Rev. Martin Luther King, are Franciscan Louis Vitale and Jesuit Stephen Kelly. They were 75 and 58, respectively, when they were jailed.

They submitted themselves for arrest in November, 2006, as they knelt in prayer in the driveway at the US Army Intelligence Center and School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Ft. Huachuca has been described as the source of the torture manuals used at the infamous School of the Americas.

Writing about his experience in 'Sojourners,' an ecumenical Christian magazine, Father Vitale says he and Father Kelly had 'hoped to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture' to those in charge and to speak with enlisted personnel about the base’s 'illegality and immorality.'

Sadly, for the military as well as for themselves, they were arrested and sentenced by a Tucson, Ariz., magistrate to prison for five months. Both have since been released.

In the Imperial County jail in California, Father Vitale made a discovery, that he had nothing more to fear: 'we discover the path of resistance: a vocation that we must follow in the midst of empire to overcome the oppression of our brothers and sisters.'

'I realize this stance in my solitary cell...as the steel doors clang shut, there is freedom to surrender to God and this universe. There is freedom to be open to the creative call of compassion toward our global community.'

Apparently, it was difficult for Father Vitale to acknowledge the reality 'that ours is a nation that tortures.' He chastises his country because it 'has retracted the binding commitment it made when it signed the 1975 UN declaration on torture.'

That Declaration in Article I defines torture as 'any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official...'

Father Vitale was disturbed by the photos he saw of torture perpetrated at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, such as 'hangings, electric shock, beatings, waterboardings, and other extreme physical and psychological procedures,” procedures he says were “spelled out in memos emanating from the White House.'

These tortures have been used in prisons not only in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, but also in prisons to which the US renders prisoners in Syria, Egypt, Morocco and other countries.

Father Vitale says he and Father Kelly were motivated to protest at Fort Huachuca by the death of Alyssa Peterson, a young US Army interpreter who was trained there.

'After just two sessions in the cages, she objected and refused to participate in the harsh interrogation techniques being used – techniques the Army now refuses to describe and records of which have been destroyed,' Fr. Vitale writes.

'She became distraught and was sent to suicide prevention training, only to commit suicide shortly thereafter,' Father Vitale added.

Father Vitale says he would like to know why Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast of Fort Huachuca, formerly chief of military intelligence in Iraq stationed at Abu Ghraib 'has never been reprimanded nor prosecuted for her command failure to prevent it.'

He is also concerned that Brig. Gen. John Custer, who succeeded Fast in charge of Fort Huachuca, allegedly integrated 'into standard practice' the techniques elsewhere he learned at Guantanamo.

Father Vitale said when he was in prison he thought about how 'Jesus boldly challenged every barrier to the well-being of all, fearlessly breaking the innumerable taboos, customs, and laws that dehumanize, destroy, or diminish human beings, especially the rejected, the feared, the despised. His life and vision has illumined for me the obligation to say 'no' to injustice and 'yes' to love in action.'

While he sat in jail, Father Vitale said he felt as though he was in the presence of both God and Christ 'who gave his life for the healing and well-being of all.' He wrote in Sojourners, 'In my small cell, I have a growing awareness of the communion of saints – and the possibility of a world where the vast chasm of violence and injustice enforced by torture and war is bridged and transformed.' How many of the rest of us can say that?

--Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based public relations consultant for good causes who formerly worked for the Chicago Daily News and wire services. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com.

Pushing to Rebuild the Gulf Coast, Still

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:26:00 +0000

2-26-09, 11:15 am

Original source:

Trouble the Water came close to winning an Oscar on Sunday Night! If you don't recall, it's the inspiring story of two Katrina survivors and their journey to rebuild their lives.

But Trouble the Water is more than a film – it's part of a campaign to remind the American people that the injustices along the Gulf Coast didn't begin when the levees failed in New Orleans, and that the recovery is far from over. With Obama in office, we have a new chance to demand legislative action to heal the Gulf Coast. So we've partnered with the Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign to demand action from Congress.

By clicking below, you can send a message through the film's web site to demand that Congress finally do right by Katrina survivors. And when you do, can you ask your friends and family to do the same? It only takes a minute:

The last Congress introduced a bill called the 'Gulf Coast Civic Works Act,' which would have helped rebuild vital infrastructure in the region and protect it from future floods. Unfortunately, this legislation never came up for a vote.

The $787 billion economic recovery package that Congress just passed does offer support for the working poor, but it doesn't directly address the unfinished recovery of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. No region of the United States has a greater need for rebuilding its housing and infrastructure and restoring its environment – Gulf Coast residents still need your help.

President Obama has pledged to finish what was left undone in the Gulf Coast. Ask Congress to pass the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act so that President Obama can sign it into law:

Cuba to Increase Solar Panel Production

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:23:00 +0000

2-26-09, 1:14 am

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 25 (acn) Cuba is setting up a new production line to increase the production of solar panels, meant mainly for projects of the Bolivarian Alternative for Our America (ALBA).

Granma newspaper reports this Wednesday that the assembly of this line is being done at the Ernesto Guevara Electronic Components Enterprise, in western Pinar del Rio province, the only one in Cuba that produces this equipment capable of turning solar radiation into electric power.

Carlos Ivan Cabrera, assistant director of this company, said that the new line will be in production by mid-year and now has a higher level of automation, which includes the welding process, which is now done manually.

The factory manufactures photovoltaic modules of different kinds (from 5 to 160 watts), to customer's requirements, and they are designed in such a way that after 20 years of use they will still have 90 percent of their original capabilities.

These panels supply energy to outlying towns, schools and health facilities in Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia, among other markets.

From the Cuban News Agency

New GONSO News Tied to Controversial PR Firm

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:22:00 +0000

2-26-09, 11:12 am

The Atlanta Progressive News

(APN) ATLANTA - A month-old online news service in Atlanta called GONSO, founded by veteran corporate journalists, is tied to a controversial public relations firm, Alisias, which, among other things, has put a positive spin on the mass displacement of public housing residents and mass demolition of public housing in Atlanta.

The Chair of GONSO is Alisias President Rick White. John Sugg, columnist and former Senior Editor at Creative Loafing magazine, is Executive Editor. Jon Sinton, who co-founded Air America Radio, is Publisher.

The Georgia Online News Service (GONSO) does not yet have a functioning website, but its current articles appear to be published by GONSO exclusively on the Alisias website.

GONSO also has an email distribution list powered by Alisias.

Both GONSO's emails and Facebook page list the same address-3390 Peachtree Road, Suite 1150-as Alisias does.

'We launched in January 2009 with more than two dozen veteran Georgia journalists and media professionals. We produce news feeds that go to every Georgia newspaper and broadcast station as well as more than 15,000 opinion leaders across the state,' GONSO's Facebook page says.

'Because our content is written, sourced and edited by trusted veteran journalists, it is 'print ready' for the next day's newspapers or immediate publishing on web sites when it arrives in our subscribers' newsroom,' the page says.

'You'll note our commentary is decidedly post-partisan. Randy Evans and Ralph Reed are regular contributors. John Sugg, Lyle Harris and Hollis Gillespie have weekly columns. For years David Beasley managed op-eds for the AJC and now he does it for GONSO,' the page says.

'During our beta phase, subscription is free to news organizations and individuals alike,' the page says.

ALISIAS CONNECTIONS

Several connections between GONSO and Alisias are apparent, Atlanta Progressive News can reveal. First, as noted above, Rick White is both the President of Alisias and the Chair of GONSO.

This means, White has the ability, and business incentive, to both promote Alisias clients, on the one hand, and provide or orchestrate coverage for them, on the other, though his respective operations.

This fact in itself raises numerous questions about conflict-of-interest and transparency.

As far as transparency, Alisias does not list its clients on its website. 'We do not... advertise our client list,' Alisias writes on its website.

Therefore, while some of Alisias's clients and former clients have been high profile-such as the Atlanta Housing Authority and Councilman Lamar Willis-readers of GONSO will for the most part be unable to watch out for potential conflicts of interests involving Alisias clients.

Some may question Atlanta Progressive News for raising questions of conflict of interest regarding GONSO and Alisias, seeing as how APN is an openly progressive news publication which often takes principled issue stands. For instance, the present writer has made public presentations against public housing demolitions and nuclear power.

Ironically, in his Alisias PR capacity, Rick White verbally attacked the present writer at an Atlanta Housing Authority Board of Commissioners meeting in 2007, asking 'Are you with the media? Why don't you act like it?'

The irony of such a comment two years later aside, the difference is really about transparency. If GONSO were to disclose its ties to Alisias or its owners and staff-and if Alisias disclosed its client list to the public-then at least readers would be able to engage in the kind of healthy media literacy required in today's diverse media ecosystem.

Second, as exclusively reported by Atlanta Progressive News, Lyle Harris--who formerly wrote for the Editorial Board of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper--recently distributed business cards listing him as an Alisias employee. Harris is now listed, as noted above, as a columnist with GONSO.

Third, as noted above, Alisias and GONSO are using the same mailing address, email distribution service ('Powered by Alisias'), and website, facts which are confusing at best but which also suggest a lack of separation between the two entities.

RECENT CONTROVERSIES INVOLVING ALISIAS

Alisias is no stranger to controversy; in fact, its mission is to serve clients pursuing controversial public policies, like public housing demolitions, according to its website.

Alisias has a website but it has very little information about its staff or its clients.

'We [Alisias] specialize in providing confidential advice to individuals and entities that are distressed and/or under attack by the media, the public and special interests,' according to a description on PRWeb.com.

First and foremost, Alisias has promoted AHA's demolition and eviction policies.

Alisias, on behalf of AHA, also has made numerous false claims, including regarding resident preferences and the location of voucher-leasing opportunities in Atlanta.

Alisias crafted a print advertising campaign of quarter-page and half-page ads appearing in publications like Creative Loafing and Atlanta Voice, claiming 96% of public housing residents want to leave public housing.

As APN has previously reported in depth, that claim was false, as it was based on one question surveys issued to residents, which asked, 'Would you like the opportunity to receive a Housing Choice Voucher?'

These surveys occurred at meetings where AHA had already told residents their plans to demolish their buildings. Thus, residents were never given a real choice.

As reported by APN, a recent GSU study shows that many residents do not want to leave family public housing, and the majority of senior residents do not want to move. Given the chance to complete petitions opposing the demolitions, a majority of residents at Hollywood Courts and Palmer House signed.

Alisias also claimed that residents had a choice of where to move with the vouchers they would receive. This, of course, did not address the fact that voucher leasing opportunities are mostly clustered in poor, Black neighborhoods.

According to a misleading blog post by Alisias on July 14, 2007, AHA residents had voucher-leasing options all over Atlanta. However, the map cited as evidence for this, was a map instead showing subsidized workforce housing, that is, housing for people making the salaries of teachers and police officers.

Councilwoman Felicia Moore last year called for Rick White's termination from AHA when White attacked her in the AJC, arguing that the reason she was seeking accountability from AHA was that she was worried about how public housing relocations would affect the demographic makeup of her District.

Several Council members called for an apology to Moore.

Alisias also had to stop working for Councilman Lamar Willis, after the firm realized it had made statements on behalf of Willis which no longer seemed to be true. This turnabout at the time raised questions about the due diligence of Alisias to ensure claims it makes on behalf of its clients are true.

A TANGLED WEB

APN broke the news in March 2008 that Sugg and Harris were now working with White.

Sugg, who previously told APN he supported the public housing demolitions and the privatization of Grady Hospital, advised APN he was working with White during a Council meeting last year. Sugg told APN, as a result, that we were on opposite sides of the public housing issue.

Sugg continued to attend events related to AHA, apparently on behalf of Alisias. Sugg's ability to parlay his expertise as a former journalist to Alisias, to help Alisias support public housing demolitions, raises even more questions now that Sugg is back in the business of journalism.

At the time of APN's March 2008 story, some expressed disappointment with both former journalists, Sugg and Harris.

Notably, the AJC's news coverage has tended to present AHA's assertions as facts and residents' assertions as opinions. The AJC has rarely printed any information critical of AHA during at least the last three years.

The AJC's Editorial pages, where Harris-now of GONSO and Alisias--often wrote columns on behalf of the Editorial Board, typically contained glowing editorials, and sometimes photo spreads, about AHA's demolition plans and AHA's director Renee Glover.

'Wow, it's a perfect match, they belong together. It's certainly the place [Alisias] for an editorial writer at the Journal-Constitution, who already wrote public relations pieces for the AHA and the City,' Anita Beaty, Executive Director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, said at the time.

'As a Member of the Editorial Board, he rarely if ever represented all sides of the issue,' Beaty said of Harris. 'It was usually an opinion representing the business community of Atlanta. We've had a challenge trying to get him to see objectively any other side of an issue than the development.'

Regarding Sugg, 'It is disappointing to say the least, because of Sugg's progressive record and involvement in progressive causes,' Adam Shapiro, host of WRFG 89.3 FM's progressive news hour 'Current Events' program, told APN.

'To see this kind of thing happen, even if just on one issue [public housing], is-I keep coming back to the word, disappointing. It's also reprehensible,' Shapiro said.

'That surprises me a lot. John Sugg has been the editor of Creative Loafing, which in some ways in the past was an alternative to the Journal-Constitution's editorial point of view but has become less and less so. And I'm just disappointed because John's a colleague and I thought he knew better,' Beaty said.

'He's too good of a reporter to be working with the likes of Rick White,' Beaty said.

GONSO'S FIRST MONTH

The majority of GONSO content at this time appears to be commentary or opinion pieces, a few which have appeared in the opinion pages of corporate daily newspapers like the Athens Banner-Herald and Early County News.

Out of about two dozen articles listed in a February 23, 2009, 'news feed' obtained by APN, the vast majority are opinion articles, including pieces by Maynard Eaton of the Atlanta Voice, Hollis Gillespie formerly of Creative Loafing, Lyle Harris, and John Sugg.

A few news stories appear regarding the nuclear power bill in the State legislature by a reporter named Maggie Lee; and a book review appears by David Lee Simmons, formerly of Creative Loafing.

APN would normally contact GONSO for comment; however, based on APN's extensive experience with White, it is unlikely he would respond at all or within a reasonable time frame.

Sinton did not immediately return a voice mail seeking comment.

--Matthew Cardinale is the News Editor for The Atlanta Progressive News and is reachable at matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com.

Violence Against Women: Most Pervasive Human Rights Violation

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:20:00 +0000

2-26-09, 11:10 am

Original source: People's Voice (Canada)

As International Women's Day nears the century mark (the first IWD was held in 1911), women have made enormous progress in many respects. But the present global economic crisis will have a profound negative impact on women, and the long struggle to end violence against women remains far from victory.

For the past decade, the United Nations has chosen an annual theme to mark International Women's Day. This year, the slogan is 'Women and Men United to End Violence Against Women and Girls.'

As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said on IWD 2007, 'Violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women's lives, on their families, and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence – yet the reality is that too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned.'

Facts and figures from the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) show that this is the single most pervasive human rights violation on a global scale.

At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime – with the abuser usually someone known to her.

For women aged 15 to 44 years, violence is a major cause of death and disability. In a 1994 study based on World Bank data regarding selected risk factors facing women in this age group, rape and domestic violence rated higher than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria.

Moreover, studies have revealed that women who experience violence are at a higher risk of HIV infection: a survey among 1,366 South African women showed that women who were beaten by their partners were 48 percent more likely to be infected with HIV than those who were not.

The economic cost of violence against women is considerable. A 2003 report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the costs of intimate partner violence in the United States alone exceed $5.8 billion per year, including $4.1 billion for direct medical and health care services, and productivity losses accounting for nearly $1.8 billion. A recent survey by the American Institute on Domestic Violence found that domestic violence victims lose nearly 8 million days of paid work per year – the equivalent of 32,000 full-time jobs.

Women are more at risk of experiencing violence in intimate relationships, and in no country are women safe. Out of ten counties surveyed in 2005 by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 50 percent of women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Tanzania reported having been subjected to physical or sexual violence by intimate partners, rising to a staggering 71 percent in rural Ethiopia. Only in Japan did less than 20 percent of women report incidents of domestic violence. An earlier WHO study puts the number of women physically abused by their partners or ex-partners at 30 percent in the United Kingdom, and 22 percent in the United States.

Based on several surveys from around the world, half of the women who die from homicides are killed by their current or former husbands or partners. Women are killed by people they know and die from gun violence, beatings and burns, among numerous other forms of abuse. A study conducted in Sao Paulo, Brazil, reported that 13 percent of deaths of women of reproductive age were homicides, of which 60 percent were committed by their partners. According to a UNIFEM report on Afghanistan, out of 1,327 incidents of violence against women collected between January 2003 and June 2005, 36 women had been killed – in 16 cases by their intimate partners.

By the year 2006, 89 states had some form of legislative prohibition on domestic violence, and a growing number of countries had instituted national plans of action to end violence against women. This is a clear increase from 2003, when only 45 countries had specific laws on domestic violence. Yet high levels of violence against women persist.

Limited availability of services, stigma and fear prevent women from seeking assistance and redress. This has been confirmed by a study published by the WHO in 2005: on the basis of data collected from 24,000 women in ten countries, between 55 percent and 95 percent of women who had been physically abused by their partners had never contacted NGOs, shelters or the police for help.

Sexual violence by non-partners is also common, but estimates of its prevalence are difficult to establish, because in many societies, such violence remains an issue of deep shame for women and their families. Statistics on rape extracted from police records, for example, are notoriously unreliable because of significant underreporting.

It is estimated that worldwide, one in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. In a study of nearly 1,200 ninth-grade students in Geneva, Switzerland, 20 percent of girls revealed they had experienced at least one incident of physical sexual abuse.

According to the 2005 multi-country study on domestic violence undertaken by the WHO, between 10 and 12 percent of women in Peru, Samoa and Tanzania have suffered sexual violence by non-partners after the age of 15. Other population-based studies reveal that 11.6 percent of women in Canada reported sexual violence by a non-partner in their lifetime, and between 10 and 20 percent of women in New Zealand and Australia have experienced various forms of sexual violence from non-partners, including unwanted sexual touching, attempted rape and rape.

In many societies, the legal system and community attitudes add to the trauma that rape survivors experience. Women are often held responsible for the violence against them, and in many places laws contain loopholes which allow the perpetrators to act with impunity. In a number of countries, a rapist can go free if he proposes to marry the victim.

Trafficking involves the recruitment and transportation of persons, using deception, coercion and threats to keep them in a situation of forced labour or servitude. Persons are trafficked into a variety of sectors of the informal economy, including prostitution, domestic work, agriculture, the garment industry or street begging.

While exact data are hard to come by, estimates of the number of trafficked persons range from 500,000 to four million per year. Although women, men, girls and boys can become victims, the majority are female. Various forms of gender-based discrimination trap millions of women and girls in poverty. This puts them at higher risk of becoming targeted by traffickers, who use false promises of jobs and educational opportunities to recruit their victims. Trafficking is often connected to organized crime and has developed into a highly profitable business that generates an estimated US$7-12 billion per year.

Trafficking is usually a trans-border crime. According to a 2006 UN global report on trafficking, 127 countries have been documented as countries of origin, and 137 as countries of destination. The main countries of origin are in Central and South-Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Asia, followed by West Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The most commonly reported countries of destination are in Western Europe, Asia and Northern America. By 2006, 93 countries had prohibited trafficking.

The victims in today's armed conflicts are far more likely to be civilians than soldiers. Some 70 percent of the casualties in recent conflicts have been non-combatants, most of them women and children. Women's bodies have become part of the battleground for those who use terror as a tactic of war - they are raped, abducted, humiliated and made to undergo forced pregnancy, sexual abuse and slavery. Violence against women has been reported in every international or non-international war-zone, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, Colombia, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Chechnya/Russian Federation, Darfur, Sudan, northern Uganda and the former Yugoslavia.

A 2002 UNIFEM-sponsored report on the issue quoted a UN official in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on the terror of daily life for people in the region: 'From Pweto down near the Zambian border right up to Aru on the Sudan/Uganda border, it's a black hole where no one is safe and where no outsider goes. Women take a risk when they go out to the fields or on a road to a market. Any day they can be stripped naked, humiliated and raped in public. Many, many people no longer sleep at home, though sleeping in the bush is equally unsafe. Every night, another village is attacked. It could be any group, no one knows, but they always take away women and girls.'

Recently, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes reported that more than 32,000 cases of rape and sexual violence have been registered in South Kivu Province alone since 2005 - just a fraction of the total number of women subjected to such extreme suffering.

UNIFEM says that 'Protection and support for women survivors of violence in conflict and post-conflict areas is woefully inadequate.' Access to social services, protection, legal remedies, medical resources, and places of refuge is limited despite the efforts of local NGOs to provide assistance. A climate of impunity further exacerbates the situation, and serves as an incentive to ongoing violence.

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, adopted in 2000, calls for women's equal participation in peace and security issues. But almost a decade later much more effort is needed to strengthen mechanisms to prevent, investigate, report, prosecute and remedy violence against women in times of war, and to ensure their voices are heard in building peace.

African Asylum-seekers Must Leave Tel Aviv

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:15:00 +0000

Original source: IRIN News

TEL AVIV, 24 February 2009 (IRIN) - Some 3,000 African asylum-seekers have to leave Tel Aviv because of an August 2008 ruling by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior.

The ruling permits asylum-seekers to reside and work only in towns and cities north of Hadera and south of Gedera, about an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv, where they now live.

The ruling was initially imposed only on newcomers but in recent months asylum-seekers living in Israel for longer periods have experienced the same constraints on their work permits, forcing them to leave their homes.

Unemployment is rife in Israel's south and north while in Tel Aviv asylum-seekers can find menial jobs as street-sweepers or restaurant workers and are able to support their families.

Tel Aviv also has the one school in Israel that caters to the special needs of asylum-seekers’ children – the Bialik Elementary and High School in southern Tel Aviv.

On 17 February, the asylum-seekers protested in Tel Aviv against this regulation. Holding banners and chanting slogans, they asked the government to allow them to remain in Israel's main city.

Romm Levkovits, a spokesperson for the “Moked” (hot line for foreign workers), told IRIN: “This rule uproots scores of asylum-seekers and forces them to start life anew far away from their communities, and far from the services offered to them here, like free clinics and schools. It also forces them to be far from their jobs.”

A source in the aid community told IRIN: 'We feel that this is a move aimed at returning the asylum-seekers to work in agriculture at less than minimum wages. Asylum-seekers have worked before in agriculture and were treated harshly by their employers. They were finally allowed to leave the Kibbutzim [collective farms] and start a normal life, now it seems that someone in the Population Administration [part of the interior ministry] wants to force them back into 'slave labour’.”

This allegation follows Israel’s attempt to reduce the number of foreign workers, mostly Thai, needed for agricultural work.

However, Sabine Haddad, an interior ministry spokesperson, told IRIN normal jobs were available outside Tel Aviv.

Comment: Real Life and the New York Post's Cartoon Violence

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:21:00 +0000

2-25-09, 10:11 am

As has been widely reported this month, the New York Post published a sociopathic cartoon that depicted cops riddling a chimpanzee with bullets as they say, 'They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus package.' Without a doubt, the cartoon linked Obama to the chimpanzee. The cartoon was apparently “inspired” by both the recent police killing of a pet chimpanzee who attacked and maimed its owner and the paper's opposition to the president's economic stimulus plan. There are mounting protests against the New York Post, its editor and the cartoonist. The Post initially issued an “apology” that expressed more hostility to its critics than any remorse at the harm the cartoon may have caused. If this were the 1980s or 1990s or even the Bush era prior to the economic collapse and the emergence of Barack Obama, the response from establishment sources would have shared in the New York Post's opinion in response to critics of the cartoon. They would have smirked at 'political correctness,' and for the most part would have enjoyed the cartoon's appeal to racial prejudice in the same way Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Femi-Nazis, Don Imus “funny” use of racist epithets and impersonations were ignored for years. Reverend Al Sharpton, who has played a major role in the New York City protests against the Post, would have been made into the real villain of the situation, not the cartoon or the editor. We have entered a new period, however. It is a period when the struggle to “de-Bushize” is reminiscent of the way millions of Americans during the New Deal era struggled to cast off the political and cultural baggage of the 1920s. So we can’t see the New York Post cartoon and its response to criticism as just good clean KKK or neo-Nazi fun, or even worse, an acceptable expression of “conservative” political opinion.

When I saw the cartoon, I immediately thought of Julius Streicher, the 'editor' of the Nazis anti-Semitic tabloid, Der Sturmer. That publication specialized in portraying Jews as both lecherous beasts and degraded, dehumanized creatures. Streicher acted as one of Hitler’s propagandists in a war against “cultural bolshevism” and the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy,” a culture war against the “liberal Weimar Republic” whose policies, in the Nazi view, had undermined German “military greatness” and opened the country to “foreign, inferior anti-German elements.”

Urban intellectuals laughed at Streicher's rantings until they became official policy under the Hitler regime. The cartoons and caricatures in Der Sturmer along with the rest of the fascist media egged on people to assault Jews, communists, social democrats and other anti-fascists, to attack, maim and kill people in the streets before Hitler came to power and to promote such actions when they became government policy.

Streicher was eventually hanged after the Nuremberg Trials for crimes against humanity.

Racist portrayals of African Americans as either comical or violent animals, who can or should be beaten and killed for the pleasure of superior whites was long a staple of newspaper and later animated cartoons in US popular culture. The thousands of lynchings of African Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were praised, condoned and encouraged by the kind of cartoons, not unlike the New York Post's recent cartoon, that populated the pages of the country's newspapers.

The message from 'mainstream' publications that have fought the “culture war” against the “liberal” 1960s civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, etc, is simple: Blacks, Jews, or you select a target, forfeit the right to be considered human if they don't stay in their place. “We” can turn on them, even a President of the United States, when he dares come forward with an economic rescue plan that the corporations and the rich don’t like. Even President Obama can be portrayed as chimp shot to pieces by cops, as a warning to any African American that he or she can be killed with impunity if they don't do what is expected of them. And, of course, these message-laden caricatures, once they become acceptable for use against African Americans don’t stop with African Americans.

Cartoon violence and the real world

On New Years Eve, in the affluent Houston suburb of Bellaire, Robbie Tolan, the son of former Major League baseball player Bobby Tolan, and his cousin were stopped by police as they drove into the driveway of Bobby Tolan's home. According to media accounts, the police failed to identify themselves and began to arrest the two, forcing them onto the ground.

When Bobby Tolan and his wife, in pajamas, walked out of their home and tried to tell the police officer that the two were his son and nephew and that the car was his, he was pushed against a door and his wife thrown against a garage door. After his son, lying on the ground, turned around and cursed the policeman for pushing his mother against the garage, the police officer shot him in the chest. The horrific events continued as Bobby Tolan, his wife and his nephew were packed into police cars.

It seems that the police had run the license plate of the car incorrectly and concluded that it was a stolen car. Even with the mistake, the police failed to follow even elemental police procedure.

Tolan later told the media that as he sat in the police car, he could hear the dispatcher say the car was in fact not stolen. Tolan and his family were kept the cars, however, as a large number of police gathered around trying to figure out what to do. Eventually, he, his wife and his nephew were released and were able to get to the hospital to see Robbie, whose life was literally at stake. With the help of a supportive hospital staff, the police were kept away from Robbie. Though he survived, Tolan still has a bullet in his liver.

In a radio interview with sports journalist Mike Francesa, the senior Tolan discussed the events and stated that all his family has asked for is an apology from the local government and the police. So far they have received nothing, except silence or statements that the investigation is ongoing.

As I see it, the New York Post cartoon and the shooting of Robbie Tolan (or the police slaying of Oscar Grant in Oakland last month) are not disconnected events. The “cultural values” in the New York Post cartoon were in effect acted out by real live cops as part of a pattern of ideological and institutional racism.

If a president who won a decisive electoral victory and happens to be an African American can be so portrayed, why not the son of a distinguished major league baseball player? During their interview, Francesa asked Tolan if he thought it would have helped if he had told the police about his baseball background. Tolan said he wouldn't do that, but in a community where African Americans constitute one percent of the population and an estimated 44 percent of police stops, the racial profiling that the local police are denying seems to be a way of life.

So there are bigger issues here. It is not just about one Rupert Murdoch tabloid that hipsters in New York usually laugh at. It isn't just about one more rich white Southern suburb whose police hunt down Blacks the way soldiers search for potential invaders across a militarized border. It is about the anxieties and anger of those social forces that were decisively defeated in the last election. They sold racism along with other prejudices and sheer ignorance to advance their political agenda for so long and now have become more rabid than ever before.

For them, President Obama is to be ignored at best, race baited at worst, as a way to affirm the “morning in America” culture that Ronald Reagan portrayed in the 1980s, a back-to-the-future America populated by happy suburban white people watching African American athletes and entertainers perform for them in a society where they believe there is no such thing as a 'race problem.'

Civil rights groups are calling for a boycott of the Post. I think they should go further and call for a boycott of businesses and groups whose ads appear in the Post. A federal investigation of the Tolan shooting and the Oscar Grant murder are also in order.

Racism, in all of its forms, ideological and institutional, is still on the playing field. It feeds off inequality, offering scapegoats as a substitute for policies to face the present economic crisis. It must be literally knocked down with reasoned condemnation and firm action every time it raises its head. The actions represented by both the Post cartoon and the shootings of Robbie Tolan and Oscar Grant shouldn’t be buried or forgotten, or considered minor or “unimportant.” To take that view only legitimizes racism and strengthens those who use it and profit from it.

--Norman Markowitz teaches history at Rutgers University and is a contributing editor of Political Affairs.

Kirsten Price's Music Video 'Fall' Touches a Raw Nerve

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:09:00 +0000

2-25-09, 11:00 am

Close on the heels of Barack Obama's presidential inauguration with its focus on public honesty and sacrifice, Kirsten Price's new music video shines a tender light on the human price paid by the Bush administration's war veterans.

We all know that life will never be the same for so many young urban men and women who left home searching for a better life in service to their country, but few artists are close enough to those who have served to feel the extended depth of its aftershock. In the combative style that is fast setting Price's work apart from the pack, she lays open the permanent wounds of war while carefully avoiding any blatant exploitation of human tragedy.

'Fall' hails from Guts & Garbage, Kirsten Price's debut solo release of 2008. The song was written by Price with production credits going to Raphael Saadiq, who recently received 3 Grammy nominations including best R&B album for his long-awaited 2008 release, The Way I See It -- featuring collaborations with Stevie Wonder and Joss Stone.

This is the first music video from Price's self-styled independent record label, KPI, and as such marks a dramatic departure, not the least of which is the bold new hair cut she sports in the video. 'Sometimes you have to change what's on the outside to help change what's on the inside,' remarked Price when commenting on her decision to completely shave off her long curly mane à la Britney Spears (minus the meltdown).

Fans will have to wait a few weeks before being able to download their own copy from iTunes, but those lucky enough to be in the path of her Tough Times '09 Tour dates will have the benefit of bypassing the internet altogether and experiencing her 'ferocious rock-an-soul pipes' (Washington Post) live and direct in person.

With a couple more inches of hair on her head and several thousand miles to travel for her upcoming Tough Times '09 Winter Tour, Kirsten Price is in an infectiously upbeat mood. Anxious to get back on the road to kick off her 20-city coast-to-coast North American winter tour after a few months locked up in the recording studio, she has her work cut. With the exception of a couple of TV appearances on the Fox 2 Morning news and upcoming episodes documenting her Tough Times '09 Winter Tour, we may not get to see much of the artist until she unleashes her second solo offering which is scheduled for release later this year.

Evan Leone stars opposite the artist in the role of a young veteran soldier re-adjusting to life on the city streets, unable to escape from the demons of his wartime experiences. Directed by Jeff Kinght, the touching tale of tragedy and redemption was shot on location at the Brooklyn waterfront.

Forest Biomass Energy System for Cuba

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:06:00 +0000

2-25-09, 10:57 am

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 24 (acn) The Cuban government is working on a pilot project with the support of the UN's Organization for Industrial Development to generate electricity from forest biomass.

The demonstration plan consists of setting up a 50 kilowatt power-generating unit that would be fuelled by forest resources from a natural reserve located in the southeast of Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth, an island located off the south coast of Havana province).

Other organizations involved in the project, that will be put into practice shortly, are the UN's Environmental Program, the Fund for the Global Environment and coordinated by CUBAENERGIA with the support of the Electric Union and the Agricultural Ministry, Juventud Rebelde daily reported.

The unit will be located in Cocodrilo, a fishing community with 400 inhabitants, which has an isolated electrical system with a top demand of 32 kilowatts.

The town will benefit directly from the setting up of the unit that will burn a mixture of diesel and gasified forest biomass. This is expected to save at least 75 percent of oil.

The raw material would be obtained from a sustainable management of the forest and the ashes produced during the operation of the unit with gasified biomass – one of the main environmental concerns of this type of activity – will be reincorporated into the soil.

Another unit will be set up in La Melvis with a generation capacity of one megawatt that will be added to the electrical system of the town.

Meanwhile, a comprehensive forest growth program is being carried out to meet the demand for biomass in a mid and long term.

From the Cuban News Agency

Unionization Would Boost Economy

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:47:00 +0000

Joining a labor union provides the most direct path to improving a worker's standard of living. If done on a large enough scale, unionization could help revive the entire US economy, a chorus of voices have argued recently.

In a recent telephone conference to discuss the economic benefits of unionization with reporters last week, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said, 'One big reason we're in the crisis that we're in is that consumers have run out of money.'

Median wages dropped over the course of the past decade, making the period after the 2001 recession the first time ever that working-class wages have fallen during a an economic recovery, Reich noted.

The collapse of the housing market and the credit crunch combined with declining wages meant that working families had little or no personal financial safety net to fall back on, worsening the economic crisis to its historic proportions. 'The entire economy is in trouble because there simply is not enough demand out there,' Secretary Reich said.

'If [workers] did have higher wages and higher benefits, they would have the purchasing power they need to buy more of the goods and services that this economy produces,' Reich emphasized. 'And that would strengthen the economy overall.'

Fix the economy: join a union

A big part of the reason wages declined so precipitously over this recent period, Reich added, has to do with the decline of unionization. 'Workers want to be in unions. If they did have unions, they would have a wage and benefit premium, substantially, over the median wage worker today,' he said.

Reich also noted that the decline in unionization isn't related entirely to globalization and the movement of manufacturing or other union-dense industries overseas. Much of the decline has resulted from a growth in hostility by employers in the US to unions and to workers who try to join them.

A recent study by labor advocacy group American Rights at Work found that 30 percent of employers simply fire pro-union workers, about half threaten to close a workplace if workers join a union or try to bribe or show favoritism to workers who oppose union membership. More than 80 percent of employers hire anti-union consultants who help them intimidate workers, and more than nine in 10 employers force employees to attend anti-union meetings with supervisors.

While most of these actions are illegal, weak enforcement, small penalties and a federal bureaucracy that allows employers to endlessly appeal complaints and avoid punishment seem to provide employers with little or no incentive to obey the law. According to a January 2009 report from Human Rights Watch, 'Sanctions for illegal conduct are too feeble to adequately discourage employer law breaking, breaching the international law requirement that penalties be 'sufficiently dissuasive' to deter violations.'

To reverse this trend, boost the living standards of working families and protect the rights of workers, Reich argued, passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is necessary. The main purpose of that law would be to even the playing field between employers and workers, he stated.

According to congressional Web sites, the Employee Free Choice Act aims to establish or revise three basic labor laws: 1) to give workers a choice about how to certify a union in their workplace, using either a secret ballot or a majority sign-up process; 2) increases and enforces penalties on employers who threaten or harass workers who try to join a union; 3) eliminates red tape by speeding up the process of arbitration and mediation that employers often now delay endlessly at taxpayer expense.

Union benefits

Reich's comments introduced a new report by the Center for American Progress Action Fund on the economic benefits of unionization. The report shows that at the peak of union density in the late 1970s, workers saw growth in wages and the value of benefits proportional to the increase in their productivity. Over the last two-plus decades as union membership has declined, however, productivity has steadily grown, while workers have reaped fewer financial benefits.

“If unionization rates were the same now as they were in 1983 and the current union wage premium remained constant, new union workers would earn an estimated $49.0 billion more in wages and salaries per year,” the report's authors, David Madland, Director of the American Worker Project, and Karla Walter, Policy Analyst, noted. “If union coverage rates increased by just five percentage points over current levels, newly unionized workers would earn an estimated $25.5 billion more in wages and salaries per year.”

Union members earn an average of about 30 percent higher in wages, are 59 percent more likely to have health benefits and 54 percent more likely to have retirement benefits. Union membership also sharply reduces inequalities in wages and benefits by gender and race.

Beth Shulman, co-director of Fairness Initiative on Low-Wage Work, said that in working with low-income workers, she discovered that as workers joined unions they quickly saw higher incomes, better health care benefits and a sense of dignity and empowerment in the workplace.

'At the end of the day, having a union for millions of workers across the country really is the difference between having a decent wage and impoverishment,' Shulman pointed out. Unions also make a huge difference for communities by raising standards of livings and providing a tax base for improved public services, she added.

Think tanks like the Center for American Progress Action Fund are working closely with labor organizations like the AFL-CIO, SEIU and American Rights at Work to release a series of reports with state-by-state analysis of the benefits to working families that would come as a result of higher rates of unionization.

Book Review: A World of Trouble

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:41:00 +0000

Book Review: A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East – from the Cold War to the War on Terror Patrick Tyler New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2009

October 29th, 1956, just days after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary with ground forces, the Israeli army swept in Egyptian territory. This action launched the first stage in an ultimately failed joint Anglo-French effort to regain its colonial possession: the Suez Canal and the $100 million in revenues each year their control over it produced.

To achieve this aim, British and French officials clearly used Israel's anxiety about its security and its ambitious expansionist goals in a region with regularly shifting frontiers, alliances and power blocs. In existence as a nation for just eight years, and having been recognized by the two major competing global powers – the US and the USSR – Israel came under attack by its neighbors. In the ensuing conflict, outrages and atrocities were committed on both sides with the intention of demonstrating power and resolve to whip the other into accepting their presence.

Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, however, was not satisfied with a stalemate or any efforts by the US or other countries to pursue a peace process. According to Patrick Tyler, in his new book, A World of Trouble, Ben-Gurion sought military supremacy, control of atomic weapons, as well as new strategic alliances that would help defeat Israel's neighbors.

Into this complicated situation stepped Egyptian dictator Gamel Abdel Nasser. Nasser had risen to power with the aid of the Egyptian Communists and the far-right Muslim Brotherhood, both of whom he subsequently rounded up and housed in what, to many people fresh from the experience of the Holocaust in Europe, seemed like concentration camps.

Nasser then sought to establish himself as the leader of the emergent Arab nationalist movement by challenging Israel's right to exist and by challenging the regional hegemony of the global powers that had helped Israel into existence – Britain, the USSR and the US.

Initially courted by the Eisenhower administration, especially after he began killing and imprisoning communists, Nasser sought massive US military and development aid. The Eisenhower administration sent positive signals, but with the added condition that Nasser abandon his independence and become a US satellite in the Cold War.

Nasser responded by showing up at the Bandung Conference in 1955 as a participant in the Non-Aligned Movement, shaking hands with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and rubbing shoulders with world leaders who had rejected US advances.

Tops blew in Washington. A consensus emerged in the Eisenhower administration that Nasser had to go, but through non-military interventionist means. This decision came hard on the heels of the Eisenhower-ordered CIA operations in Guatemala to unseat democratically-elected President Jacobo Arbenz and and Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh.

Still, Nasser survived Washington's wrath, if only because he remained strategically useful to the Eisenhower administration against Soviet influence in the Middle East.

Tyler's well-researched volume traces the this example of the US government's interventions and machinations in the Middle East from the 1950s through the George W. Bush administration. It draws heavily on de-classified and hard-to-find government documents to give an insider's view of high level diplomatic meetings and communications between US presidents and other top officials as well as top diplomats and leaders of Israel, Egypt, the Soviet Union and other countries. Tyler's work is often revealing, especially about Israel's nuclear ambitions beginning in the 1950s and its secret strategic and tactical goals through the extensive period under study.

This must-read book documents the dynamic, often contradictory positions the US government adopted toward Middle East issues. While history not political solutions is the subject of Tyler's work, the book reveals the need for a radical re-orientation of US aims, including a diplomatic surge that includes all of the regional actors as equals, presses for a long-term settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that recognizes Israel's security concerns but also the special rights of the Palestinian people, their need for a recognized state, and for political and economic development on a cooperative and equal basis.