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By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

Of all of Barack Obama’s airy platitudes about change none were more vaporous than his platitudes about the environment and within that category Obama has had little at all to say about matters concerning public lands and endangered species. He is, it seems, letting his bureaucratic appointments do his talking for him. So now, five months into his administration, Obama’s policy on natural resources is beginning to take shape. It is a disturbingly familiar shape, almost sinister.

It all started with the man in the hat, Ken Salazar, Obama’s odd pick to head the Department of Interior. Odd because Salazar was largely detested in his own state, Colorado, by environmentalists for his repellent coziness with oil barons, the big ranchers and the water hogs. Odd because Salazar was close friends with the disgraced Alberto Gonzalez, the torturer’s consigliere. Odd because Salazar backed many of the Bush administration’s most rapacious assaults on the environment and environmental laws. Odder still because Salazar, in his new position as guardian of endangered species, had as a senator repeatedly advocated the weakening of the Endangered Species Act.

Salazar never hid his noxious positions behind a green mantle. Obama certainly knew what he was buying. And the president could have made a much different and refreshing choice by picking Rep. Raul Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat, a Hispanic, a westerner and a true environmentalist who had helped to expose the cauldron of corruption inside the Bush Interior Department. Yes, Obama could have picked a western environmentalist; instead he tapped a prototypical western politician with deep ties to the water, oil, timber, ranching and mining industries. So the choice was deliberate and it presaged the deflating policies that are now beginning to stream out of his office, from siding with Sarah Palin against the polar bear to greenlighting dozens of Bush-era mountaintop removal mining operations across Appalachia. (As CounterPunch pointed out last fall, Obama and Palin have long since established symbiotic harmony on God’s Pipeline, the proposed $30 billion natural gas pipeline that, if constructed, will slice across the tundra and boreal forests from Prudhoe Bay through Canada to Chicago.)
Counterpunch for more

It may be jade rings and tourists now, but when will deals for barrels of crude oil be fixed in the Chinese currency?
(STR/Reuters)

By Leo Lewis in Hong Kong

Looming over a glass counter scattered with jade rings, the woman from Guangzhou finally reaches her decision: her fidgeting husband perks-up and begins noisy negotiations with the Hong Kong jeweller. A price is agreed, but instead of Hong Kong dollars, the deal is settled in mainland yuan.

Given the proximity of the border, there is nothing too surprising about the transaction, perhaps: for the sake of good business, three other jewellers along the same Hong Kong street cheerfully accept what are, never mind “one nation, two systems”, another nation’s banknotes.

But the casualness of the transaction raises a question which could first reshape the world of trade and later the geopolitical scene. It may be jade rings and tourists now, but when will deals for three million barrels per day of crude oil be fixed, not in dollars, but in the Chinese currency?

The immediate answer, probably, is that while such a day may still be some way off, it will arrive much sooner than New York, London and Tokyo would like to think. To become an international currency, the yuan would have to undergo a series of substantial technical alterations from its present status, not least becoming freely convertible like the dollar, euro, pound and yen.

For Beijing, there would be huge cost risks involved if the currency were suddenly flung to the full mercy of international markets. Such a calculated loss of control may simply prove intolerable to a government that knows no other way.
And yet three of the most vital ingredients for the yuan to become an international currency are quite visibly stewing away: opportunity, momentum and willpower.

Times Online for more

June 5, 2009
“There’s been a 40 percent increase in civilian deaths compared to 2007.”
By Jason Motlagh

Fallout continues from American airstrikes in Afghanistan May 4 that killed dozens of civilians.

A U.S. military inquiry concluded errors were made, and the U.S. and NATO are now reassessing their tactics and strategy.

Our reporter in Afghanistan, Jason Motlagh, who is a Pulitzer Center journalist, got access to some of the survivors, and here’s a clip from his story.

View Motlagh’s full Webcam report here. It’s the latest edition in FRONTLINE/World’s series, iWitness.

Frontline for more

By Manuela Saragosa
Business reporter, BBC World Service

The bond certificates in question

What do you get when you mix two Japanese nationals with some fake US government bonds, a slow train to Switzerland and members of the Italian financial guard?

The answer is a $134bn (£82bn; 97bn euros) conspiracy theory which has fired up a whole realm of financial bloggers on the internet.

But then this is a story which does have the ring of a John Le Carre novel.

It begins with two 50-year-old Japanese men being stopped by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza – the country’s financial guard – on a train passing through Chiasso, a small border town between Italy and Switzerland.

The Italian finance guards ask the pair if they have anything to declare on their way into Switzerland. Both insist they haven’t.

But on a hunch, the guards decide to search their suitcase anyway.

In it, under items of personal clothing, they find a concealed area stuffed with documents that look like dollar-denominated US government bonds apparently worth a jaw-dropping $134bn.

That is enough to fund three Beijing Olympics, with some change leftover to boot.

Secret mission?

It clearly is a remarkable tale, but after the “bonds” were seized by the Italian finance police, the men, after some questioning, were let go, sparking a frenzy of conspiracy theories on the internet.

Now questions abound: are the bonds real or counterfeit? And why were the Japanese men not arrested?

Were they, perhaps, actually Japanese government officials on a secret mission to dump US dollar-denominated assets?

And if so, is that just more evidence that a growing number of investors are losing faith in the US economy and the US government’s ability to repay is ballooning debt?

Who else is involved, ask the bloggers. Is this the work of the Italian mafia? Take a trip round the web, and there is no shortage of explanations.
BBC for more

Sitar: Anoushka Shankar
Violin: Joshua Bell
Tabla: Tanmoy Bose

June 25, 2009

Jakarta,Indonesia 8 – 10 June 2009

The United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting on the Question of Palestine and the United Nations Public Forum in support of the Palestinian People were held on 8-10 June 2009 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The presentation of the talk given by Sonja Karkar from Australians for Palestine/Women for Palestine at the United Nations Public Forum on 10 June 2009 can be viewed below. Unfortunately, the size of this video meant the quality had to be compromised for viewing on the website, but clear and undistorted copies are available on DVD.

Click on video to watch

An AFP/WFP report of the three days’ meeting in Jakarta follows with links to the United Nations reports and summaries of the speakers’ talks and also photos.

In 2006, Women for Palestine (WFP) and Australians for Palestine (AFP) had been first invited to attend as NGO observers of the UN Asia Pacific Meeting and Public Forum held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and four of us attended – Sonja Karkar, Dora McPhee, Nasser and Moammar Mashni. Claire O’Connor from Adelaide’s Australian Friends of Palestine (AFOPA) joined us as well, making the Australian contingent a noticeable addition to the three days of meetings – much probably due to our outspokenness and challenging questions.

Australians For Palestine for more

By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH and SALMAN MASOOD
Published: June 23, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An airstrike believed to have been carried out by a United States drone killed at least 60 people at a funeral for a Taliban fighter in South Waziristan on Tuesday, residents of the area and local news reports said.

Details of the attack, which occurred in Makeen, remained unclear, but the reported death toll was exceptionally high. If the reports are indeed accurate and if the attack was carried out by a drone, the strike could be the deadliest since the United States began using the aircraft to fire remotely guided missiles at members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The United States carried out 22 previous drone strikes this year, as the Obama administration has intensified a policy inherited from the Bush administration.

Before the attack on Tuesday, the Pakistani Army and Air Force had begun operations in South Waziristan against the forces of the Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud. The group’s suicide bombings in major cities have terrorized Pakistanis for years.

In a serious blow to Pakistan’s effort, on Tuesday an assassin loyal to Mr. Mehsud shot and killed a rival tribal leader, Qari Zainuddin, whom the government had hoped to use as an ally in its campaign to corner the Taliban leader.

NY Times for more

By Ramzy Baroud

One might be tempted to dismiss the recent findings of the US State Department on human trafficking as largely political. But do not be too hasty.

Criticism of the State Department’s report on trafficked persons, issued on 16 June, should be rife. The language describing US allies’ efforts to combat the problem seems undeserved, especially when one examines the nearly 320- page report and observes the minuscule efforts of these governments. Also, it was hardly surprising to find that Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria — Washington’s foremost foes — languish in the report’s Tier 3 category, i.e. countries where the problem is most grave and least combated. Offenders in Tier 3 are subject to US sanctions, while governments of countries in Tier 1 are perceived as vigilant in fighting human trafficking.

One could also question the US government’s own moral legitimacy; classifying the world into watch lists, congratulating some and reprimanding and sanctioning others, while the US itself has thus far (and for nine consecutive reports starting 2000) been immune to self-criticism.

Undoubtedly, the political hubris and self- righteous underpinnings of the report are disturbing, but that hardly represents an end to the argument. The fact remains that the report’s rating of over 170 countries is thorough and largely consistent with facts as observed, reported by the media and examined in other comprehensive reports on the same issue. Indeed, the UN’s own Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, launched by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in February 2009, affirms much of the State Departments’ findings regarding patterns of abuse reported around the world, most notably in Africa, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.

The report examined governmental responses to the exploitation of people, including children, for the purposes of forced labour, sex and stolen organs. At least 12.3 million adults and children are used to sustain the thriving business of modern-day slavery, though the real number is probably much higher given that human traffickers have little interest in divulging exact data.

The global financial crisis has fuelled the demand for cheap labour, making the exploitation of the most vulnerable people part and parcel of the economic recovery plans of many companies, and even countries. Under these circumstances, there should be little doubt that the UN’s once promising campaign to eradicate much of the world’s hunger by 2015 is already a pipedream.

One of the testimonies cited in the State Department’s report was that of Mohamed Selim Khan, who “woke up in a strange house and felt an excruciating pain in his abdomen. Unsure of where he was, Khan asked a man wearing a surgical mask what had happened. ‘We have taken your kidney,’ the stranger said. ‘If you tell anyone, we’ll kill you.'”

Khan’s experience epitomizes the nightmare of millions of people around the world, as they struggle to provide for hungry families. Their plight is no secret. It can be seen on the streets of many cities around the world, from Europe to Asia and Central America to the Gulf, where worn out, haggard looking men in dirty uniforms are working long hours for little pay, trapped between pressing needs at home and the merciless demands of their “recruitment agencies”.

But cheap or forced labor is not the only form of human trafficking. According to the UN’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, based on data collected in 155 countries, “the most common form of human trafficking [79 per cent] is sexual exploitation”.

IRIN News, affiliated with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported on 18 June that “women from the former Soviet Union and China are still being trafficked across the border with Egypt into Israel for forced prostitution by organized criminal groups”. Israel has been identified as a “prime destination for trafficking by both the State Department and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime”. One Israeli gang alone, according to the report, has trafficked over 2,000 women into Israel and Cyprus in the last six years.

One has to wonder the wisdom of international conferences and global efforts aimed at cracking down on Gazans smuggling food and medicine across the same Egyptian border to survive the Israeli siege when almost no efforts have been dedicated to ending the stark exploitation and abuse of thousands of women enriching Israel’s sex industry.

Dare I say that while human trafficking is itself an apolitical issue, recognizing and combating, or failing to combat, the problem is very much political. Think of the banking crisis, which fuelled a global recession, and the way astronomical amounts of money have been dedicated to solving it, trillions of dollars in global bailouts ultimately rewarding those who caused the crisis in the first place. Compare these efforts to the pathetic attempts at halting the disgraceful commercialization of humans, their organs, their sexuality, their very humanity.

The problem is now compounded. UN food officials declared on 19 June that hunger around the world has passed the unprecedented threshold of one billion, that is one in six people. The alarming increase of 100 million hungry children, women and men from last year’s estimates is blamed on the economic recession. While international institutions are efficient at recognizing such problems, proposed solutions often lack sincerity, or any sense of urgency.

“A hungry world is a dangerous world,” said Josette Sheeran of the World Food Programme. “Without food, people have only three options: they riot, they emigrate or they die.” They also become products in markets ready to exploit those whose very survival is at stake.

When Julia, from the Balkans, was eight years old, she was taken along with her sisters to a neighboring country, where she was sold to beg. She was beaten every time she failed to return with her fixed quota of money. Once she became a teenager she was forced into prostitution. After escaping she was placed in a government orphanage from which she also escaped, returning to the streets. According to the State Department report, eventually “Julia was arrested on narcotics charges”.

Can this injustice be any more obvious?

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, “The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle” (Pluto Press, London), and his forthcoming book is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London)
If you like this article, please consider making a contribution to the Palestine Chronicle.
Palestine Chronicle for more

Hyping Iran, Ignoring Mexico

By JOHN ROSS

Mexico City.
A stolen election by an entrenched regime? Opposition charges that more votes were cast than ballots distributed to the polling places? That independent electoral observers were barred from witnessing the vote count? Demands for a recount to which election officials respond by offering to recount just 10% of the vote? A regime-controlled media that exalts the incumbent’s victory and demonizes the loser? The use of alternative media by the opposition to get their side of the story out? Massive street protests by millions of peaceful demonstrators waving homemade signs and wearing bracelets displaying the color of their movement? At least 20 protestors gunned down by authorities and paramilitaries? Worldwide moral indignation stirred up by the international media?

Iran 2009? Yes!

Mexico 2006? Yes and no.

All aspects of the above scenario describe the Great Mexican Electoral Flimflam three years ago this July 2nd – save for the conundrum of worldwide moral indignation. Virtually ignored by the international media, the stealing of the Mexican presidential election by the right-wing oligarchy stirred little indignation anywhere outside of Mexico.

A comparison of coverage extended to both instances of electoral fraud by the New York Times, the “paper of record”, is instructive.

NYT coverage of the upheaval in Iran has been overwhelming. During the first nine days of the electoral crisis, the Times ran at least one front-page story daily – from Election Day Friday, June 12th through Saturday, June 20th, the Iranian electoral sham occupied the right-hand column (the lead story) in the international edition on eight out of nine days. The Times also ran a second Iran story on the front page in six out of the nine editions reviewed – on four of those days, the stories were accompanied by a four and sometimes five column color photo, mostly of multitudes supporting the challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who made his mark in history back in the 1980s by receiving a Christian bible and a key-shaped cake from the emissaries of Ronald Reagan in exchange for funding the Nicaraguan Contras.

As the week wore on, many stories focused on street protests and violence inflicted by paramilitaries that reportedly left a score of demonstrators dead. In addition to the front-page stories, jumps ran inside over one or more pages daily, accompanied by additional photos.

The Times sent four by-lined reporters into Teheran for the festivities – Robert Worth, Michael Slackman, Neil MacFarquhar, and the Iranian Nazna Pathi, plus Eric Schmidt reporting from Washington. Bill Keller, the New York Times executive editor, flew to the Iranian capital to pen a daily journal. All of the Times’ reporters in Teheran were housed in five-star hotels in the upscale north of the city where Mousavi has a substantial upper middle class base.

Meanwhile back in New York, the Times editorial board ran a pair of editorials during the first week of the upheaval decrying repression of peaceful protest and the purported vote fraud. At least seven op-ed screeds vilified incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose condemnations of Israel the Times assiduously combats, and celebrated the presumed victor Mousavi, albeit with varying degrees of caution.
Counter punch for more