Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - A major Pentagon hawk has abruptly resigned his post in a move that, in the context of other recent developments, is likely to fuel speculation that the White House might be trying to soften the harder edges of its controversial policies.

The Pentagon announced Wednesday evening that Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Policy, J.D. Crouch II, was resigning effective Friday, in order to return to ‘’academia'’ at Southwest Missouri State University (SMSU).

Significantly, the announcement did not give a reason for his departure nor for the suddenness with which it is taking place. And no one was named to replace him. (more…)

By Mark Ritchie and Kristin Dawkins | October 2003

Forget the spin you have been reading about the “failure� of the World Trade Organization meet-ing
in Cancun. It was one of the most successful international meetings in years because it rede-fined
how trade can benefit the poor and how the developing world can be real players in these
negotiations. In fact, if policymakers and global trade negotiators were paying attention, Cancun
could lead to trade talks that actually bring about fair trade, and the benefits to both the develop-ing
and the developed world that have long been promised. (more…)

By Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - U.S. officials have vowed to continue to fight World Bank assistance for Iran in a bid to derail funding for the country’s alleged nuclear weapons programme and to penalise Tehran for its confrontational policies towards the United States and Israel.

“The bank is an important foreign policy tool for the United States, and is a vehicle for leveraging our foreign assistance resources throughout the globe,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Treasury William E. Schuerch told members of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday.

“I want to assure you that the Treasury Department and the U.S. executive director at the World Bank, while not fully successful, have consistently and actively sought to block all proposals for World Bank Group assistance to Iran,” Schuerch told the House of Representatives Financial Services Subcommittee. (more…)

International Affairs 79, 7 (2003) 1037-1043
STROBE TALBOTT*

* This is a revised text of the sixth John Whitehead Lecture delivered by Strobe Talbott at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House on 9 October 2003. As always with writings and commentary of Brookings scholars, the views expressed here are personal and do not reflect institutional positions or policy.

I am honoured to give a lecture established in honour of John Whitehead. He was a predecessor of mine at the State Department and an active trustee and chairman of the board of Brookings. He remains a friend and mentor.

Two weeks ago, I visited Chatham House in cyberspace in order to read the inaugural address of its new Chairman DeAnne Julius. Like her, I feel I should address the war in Iraq, where 138,000 American and 11,000 British troops are stationed and where my president and your prime minister have bet their political futures. Indeed, the stakes are even higher-I daresay much higher-than that. The war and its aftermath will have much to do with determining the direction of American and British foreign policy for decades to come. (more…)

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - If the world does not take concrete steps to fight child hunger in the next few years, it could see one in four of its children malnourished within a half century, says a new report.

Solutions are available to reduce the phenomenon, according to the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a finding echoed by the World Bank.

The two agencies say child malnutrition can be sharply reduced over the next five decades if developed and developing countries increase support for rural development in poor countries, spend more money on research, and reduce barriers in developed countries to agricultural exports from the South. (more…)

Dear friends,

I would like to write you today to reassure you that there are still some Palestinians alive, and that the siege and closure is not long, it is only three years since it started, and Israel only destroyed only 114 houses during last week at Rafah district according to the UNRWA latest statistics, and only killed 17 people in its attack and another 12 in Gaza and 100 injured among them a medical team who came to help those injured… so don’t worry about students if they don’t go to school, or about workers if they don’t go to their work, because statistics say that only 80% do not work, so don’t worry, we are fine, do not condemn the siege or the WALL, because it does not against the international agreement of human rights, is collective punishment against human rights?!, (for example punishing 2 million people collectively) considered against human rights?!, or is the building of a wall that destroys agricultural land, and separate community groups against human right?! Believe me when say that I didn’t read any thing about the wall in the international charter of human right, is there any term in that charter says that it is prohibited to evacuate farmers while picking up olive trees ???!! I did not read any thing of the kind, maybe all that the Israeli government and the occupation army are doing is legal, moral, and according to the human right laws, we remember the violence just when a Palestinian suicide in Israel, and we begin to condemn. It is sad that there are no equal values to the human life. Some people lives is more valuable than the others. For me it is not like that, I think that all human lives has the same values, if they are Jewish, Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Palestinians, Americans, European, Africans, or Asian…. Killing is the same if it is done in the name of GOD or democracy or nationalism or security or anything. There is no justification for killing or violence and occupation. (more…)

By Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct (IPS) - Fans in Argentina’s football stadiums will now
have a new activity during half-time: reading short stories by local
writers, handed out as part of an innovative initiative aimed at calming
tempers, which often flare up during games, while boosting the reading
habit.

The initial response to the ‘’When You Read, You Always Win'’ project,
organised by the Education Ministry with the support of the Argentine
Football Association, local football clubs, publishing houses and the print
media, ‘’has been extraordinary, and has surpassed all our expectations,'’
Margarita Eggers, the coordinator of the project, told IPS. (more…)

No uranium, no munitions, no missiles, no programmes

As the first progress report from the Iraq Survey Group is released, Cambridge WMD expert Dr Glen Rangwala finds that even the diluted claims made for Saddam Hussein’s arsenal don’t stand up

Last week’s progress report by American and British weapons inspectors in Iraq has failed to supply evidence for the vast majority of the claims made on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction by their governments before the war. (more…)

A Year Later, Ethnic Koreans Bear Brunt of Suspicion
By Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Oct (IPS) - While Tokyo marks the first anniversary this month
of the return of five kidnapped Japanese nationals from Pyongyang, Chong
Hyon Suk, an ethnic Korean in Japan, says she is still trying to come to
terms with those horrifying revelations.

“I felt terrible when North Korea confirmed its abduction of Japanese
nationals. I now apologise to my Japanese friends for my pro-Pyongyang
stance,” says 40-year-old Chong, a third-generation Korean here in the
country.

Chong, a part-time English teacher, is married to a fellow Korean
resident and has two children who attend a pro-Pyongyang school in Tokyo. (more…)

By Donald Wagner

[This is one of the best and most comprehensive studies on the
subject of “Christian Zionism.” A series of five articles
published by The Daily Star during the week ending Saturday
October 11, 2003. Donald Wagner is professor of religion and
Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University in Chicago and
executive director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Wagner lost his position at Nothpark University because of his
clear stands.]

“The first lobbying effort on behalf of a ‘Jewish state’
in Palestine was not organized or initiated by Jews. It
occurred in 1891, when a popular fundamentalist Christian
writer and lay-preacher, William E. Blackstone, organized
a national campaign to appeal to the then-president of the
United States, Benjamin Harrison, to support the creation
of a ‘Jewish state’ in Palestine.” (more…)

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - They normally come in the form of simple, one or two-paragraph queries, affectionately, and sometimes not so affectionately, referred to by his underlings and colleagues as ‘’snowflakes'’.

But Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld’s latest ruminations blew in like a freak autumn blizzard, catching official Washington off-guard and leaving spokespersons scrambling for guidance that could reassure reporters, Congress and the public that, yes, the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan really are completely under control.

The leak of a dour, two-page memo addressed to four of Rumsfeld’s top aides and filled with a series of fundamental questions that most experts would have expected to have been thought out long ago is the latest indication of serious disarray – even self-doubt – among the Bush administration hawks who led the march to war in Iraq. (more…)

Noam Chomsky

The past year has been a momentous one in world affairs. In the normal rhythm, the pattern was set in September, a month marked by several important and closely related events. The most powerful state in history announced a new National Security Strategy asserting that it will maintain global hegemony permanently: any challenge will be blocked by force, the dimension in which the US reigns supreme. At the same time, the war drums began to beat to mobilize the population for an invasion of Iraq, which would be “the first test [of the doctrine], not the last,” the New York Times observed after the invasion, “the petri dish in which this experiment in pre-emptive policy grew.” And the campaign opened for the mid-term congressional elections, which would determine whether the administration would be able to carry forward its radical international and domestic agenda.

The new “imperial grand strategy,” as it was aptly termed at once by John Ikenberry, presents the US as “a revisionist state seeking to parlay its momentary advantages into a world order in which it runs the show,” a “unipolar world” in which “no state or coalition could ever challenge” it as “global leader, protector, and enforcer. These policies are fraught with danger even for the US itself, he warned, joining many others in the foreign policy elite. (more…)

By Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Oct (IPS) The European Union must change in order to bridge
the North-South divide, a top official says in a report.

Institutions such as the European Union (EU), the United Nations(UN), the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) must respond to the
changing global order if they are to help developing countries, according to a
report written by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, former prime minister of Denmark and
rapporteur on globalisation to the Party of European Socialists.

Presenting his report ‘Europe and a New Global Order’ Wednesday to a forum
organised by the World Bank and the Brussels-based independent think-tank,
the European Policy Centre (EPC), Rasmussen urged policy makers that it is
“time for change". (more…)

A grim gamble

Mexican immigrants bet their lives they can make it across the U.S. border through the blazing Arizona desert. Poverty drives them; hope lures them. But in ever greater numbers, the desert is killing them.

By Michael Riley
Denver Post Staff Writer

Sunday, October 19, 2003 - TUCSON - Along with coyotes, turkey vultures and a heat so intense it can melt the soles of tennis shoes, the desert can turn a 180-pound body into a skeleton in less than three weeks.

What ends up on the stainless steel tables and in the adjacent, industrial-size freezer in the Pima County coroner’s office are not so much bodies as they are relics of the desert’s destructive power. (more…)

By Jim Lobe

Washington, Oct 21 (IPS) - The U.S. military should be investigating the deaths of dozens of Iraqi civilians killed by its troops; instead, it is not even keeping track of their numbers, says a report released here Tuesday.

In an investigation undertaken in late September, Human Rights Watch collected what it called credible reports of 94 civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces from May 1 to Oct. 1, all of which appear to have taken place in circumstances that warrant an official investigation.

In its publication, ‘Hearts and Minds: Post-War Civilian Casualties in Baghdad by U.S. Forces’, the New York-based group deplores the fact that the U.S. military has not kept any statistics on civilians deaths. “Such an attitude suggests that civilians casualties are not a paramount concern,” HRW said. (more…)

Across the Americas, Indigenous Peoples Make
Themselves Heard
By Hector Tobar , Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-indigenous19oct19195921,1,1308553.story?coll=la-home-headlines

EL ALTO, Bolivia – Above the rocky bowl of La Paz,
this vast township of brick and adobe homes stretches
across a dry plain. This is where the Aymara Indians
of western Bolivia come to live and work when their
farms can no longer feed them. (more…)

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (IPS) - The Bush administration must be patient with Iran, where growing popular unhappiness with the conservative leadership is unlikely to lead to swift political change, let alone a popular insurrection as some U.S. neo-conservatives have predicted, says a new report.

Amid rising tensions over the country’s nuclear programme and new charges that it is sheltering senior leaders of the al-Qaeda terrorist group, including the son of Osama bin Laden, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) is calling on President George W. Bush to seriously engage Teheran rather than to seek confrontation with it. (more…)

The politics of immigration

Business v Bush

From The Economist

Why you may not need to rush to change your passport after all

BASHING big business is part of the routine of “liberalâ€? America: just pluck any book written by Michael Moore from the bestseller lists. Yet in between corrupting politicians, ripping off honest workers and undermining democracy, the “stupid white menâ€? who run America’s evil corporations have somehow found time to force the White House to retreat on a subject close to the hearts of liberals of all sorts: the rights of immigrants.

In the wake of September 11th, most people accepted that some form of clampdown on immigrants was justified. The hijackers, all foreigners, had brutally exposed the inadequacies of America’s immigration system. The Bush administration’s response has come in three basic parts: stepping up policing of immigrants inside the country; moving the bureaucrats who deal with immigration into the new Department of Homeland Security, alongside the customs and borders people; and making it harder for visitors of all sorts to get into the country. (more…)

By Miriam Kagan

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - On the eve of World Food Day, the development community is divided over the best course of action to fight malnutrition and hunger, the leading causes of death and sickness worldwide.

Every day, nearly one million people across Africa depend on food aid and nearly 110 million people will need it over the next year, according to the United Nations.

Iron deficiency alone affects more than 3.5 billion people in the developing world and is responsible for 100,000 maternal deaths during childbirth each year. Globally, 4.4 million children have visible eye damage and 500,000 go blind because of Vitamin A (beta-keratin) deficiency, says the HarvestPlus research initiative. (more…)

« YOUTH’s VISION ON DEVELOPMENT »
organised by WFUNA and CONGO

Dear Friends,

On the occasion of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), WFUNA (World Federation of the United Nations Associations) and CONGO (Conference of NGOs in consultative relationship with the United Nations) have the pleasure to announce the launch of a Video Contest for Young People around the World on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Therefore, we would like to call on you and your affiliated or associated organisations to spread the information through your respective networks, and thus give the opportunity to young members or officers in charge of youth programs to participate and show their opinions and views on the MDGs, using the audiovisual tool. (more…)

Not As Good As Dracula Any More
By Marian Chiriac

BUCHAREST, Oct (IPS) - Ask a Romanian to name a national hero, and
most will mention Vlad the Impaler, the 15th century leader admired for his
vicious zero tolerance of criminals.

Vlad is better known in the west as the historical model for Dracula, the
fictional vampire. But in Romania he is seen as a symbol of justice and moral
rectitude, more so now amid the rampant corruption following the collapse of
communism in 1989. (more…)

Lawmakers Fear U.S. Is Losing Control of Funds

WASHINGTON POST - As the House today takes up President Bush’s $87 billion spending request for Iraq and Afghanistan, the debate over the bill is increasingly focused not just on the amount of money but also on who will get it.

Of the $4 billion a month already being spent in Iraq, as much as a third is going to the private contractors who have flooded into the country, said Deborah D. Avant, a political scientist at George Washington University and an expert in the new breed of private military companies. The flow of money will increase greatly if Congress approves Bush’s request. (more…)

New Leaders Leave Mark by Making Politburo Accountable
By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct (IPS) - In the first official test of its zeal for
political reform, the new Chinese leadership of President Hu Jintao broke
modest ground by making the previously untouchable Politburo of the
Communist Party accountable for its work – and approving constitutional
amendments to reflect the changing fabric of Chinese society.

In a break from the long-established tradition of secrecy and
speculation surrounding the dealings of the higher ranks of the Communist
Party, Hu Jintao this week presided over his first annual meeting of the
Central Committee since he became party chief, by announcing beforehand
what was on the agenda of the Oct. 11-14 meeting. (more…)

By Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Oct (IPS) - Every call made via mobile telephone in the
developing world is encouraging for the information and communications
technologies industry, headquartered in rich countries and floundering for
more than three years.

The expansion of cellular phone services in the nations of the developing
South, home to more than 500 million subscribers, has been practically the
only good news recently for information and communications technology (ICT)
firms. (more…)

Many soldiers, same letter Newspapers around U.S. get identical missives from Ir

WASHINGTON – Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours.

And all the letters are the same.

A Gannett News Service search found identical letters from different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, also known as “The Rock,” in 11 newspapers, including Snohomish, Wash. (more…)

By Stefania Bianchi

PERUGIA, Italy, Oct (IPS) - More formal, permanent institutions are needed to propel the emerging global civil society movement to greater heights, suggested representatives from groups meeting here Thursday.

As non-governmental organisations (NGOs) emerge and gather strength, they need to work even more closely together to make their voices heard over governmental bodies, added members of the Italian network, Peace Round Table, a coalition of 500 associations and 350 local authorities. (more…)

A Black Day for Democracy

Schwarzenegger and the Failure of the Dems

By DAVID LINDORFF

The election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of America’s largest state represents a kind of milestone in the decline of American democracy. This is not “Reagan II, the Movie,” as some have suggested–a second actor being elected governor of the tinsel state. Reagan, for all the criticism that he was “just an actor,” in fact had paid his political dues, leading the actors union and getting involved in a variety of campaigns–for example against Medicare–before jumping into electoral politics to run for governor. While he certainly relied on his actor’s charm to manufacture a persona, he had a conservative political agenda and was fairly candid about it.

Schwarzenegger, in contrast, has no political background. He is a total artifice, a creation of a group of Republican backers who care little or nothing about his personal beliefs or ideology, and see him as a vehicle for restoring Republican control in a state that has been becoming increasingly Democratic. (more…)

When Giants India and China Come Together, Things Happen
Analysis - By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct (IPS) - “Without cooperation between India and China, the
dream of an Asian century is just empty talk,” declared the ‘China Economic
Times’ recently, a respected economic publication of the State Council, or
China’s cabinet.

The statement exudes unusual excitement about cooperation between two
traditional Asian rivals in the state-controlled press here, which until
recently had little to report either economically or politically about
China’s giant neighbour. (more…)

“The people have awakened. We will never go back to the past”

There is growing evidence of reforms helping Venezuela’s poor

Wednesday, Oct 2003
By: T. Christian Miller - Los Angeles Times

CARACAS, Venezuela – You can see two worlds from this shambles of misery that creeps up the mountain.

The first is the neighborhood itself. Crude cinder-block houses lurch up the slope. The streets are tight – some no wider than the span of a man’s arms. Contaminated water courses down homemade canals. It’s loud, dirty and cramped here.

The second lies in the valley below. Skyscrapers owned by multinationals soar in neat bundles. The colonial-era Congress building gleams white. The broad avenues of the rich in the east chug with traffic – symbols of power and wealth throbbing in the distance. (more…)

By Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - In an effort to convince developing countries to adopt further deregulation of their economies, the World Bank said Tuesday its research found that countries with the least regulation have the highest levels of business and are more likely to grow far faster than those which regulate heavily.

But critics of the bank say the Washington-based institution, which has traditionally worked to promote Western economic models in developing nations, was trying to weaken a strong alliance of developing countries that resisted demands of liberalisation and opening doors for Northern investments from rich nations during last month’s global trade talks in Cancun, Mexico. (more…)

The Age, By Rebecca Urban
October 2003

Australian terrorist suspects David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib had likely been tortured while detained at Guantanamo Bay, a lawyer and Hicks’ father said today.

Australian lawyer Richard Bourke, who has been working with prisoners at Camp X-ray for the past two years, told ABC radio leaks from the American military and reports from former inmates revealed the detainees had been forced to kneel in the sun until they collapsed and were tied up and had rubber bullets fired at them. (more…)

Watchdog Group Ranks Cleanest and Dirtiest Gov’ts
By Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - Corruption is not only rampant in developing nations but in many rich nations as well, says a watchdog group that monitors corruption among civil servants and politicians across the globe.

The Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) said Tuesday in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index for 2003, which charts levels of corruption in 133 countries, that seven out of every 10 countries score less than five out of a clean score of 10.

The report also found that half of developing countries score less than three out of 10. (more…)

Patriots and invaders

Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation enjoys great popular support

It was my first and brutally abrupt realisation that Baghdad, the city of my childhood, is now occupied territory. It was also my first encounter with a potent symbol of Iraqi hostility to the occupation forces. Sitting in the front seat of the taxi that brought us from Amman, I suddenly realised that a heavy machine gun was pointing at us from only a few metres away. It was an American soldier aboard an armoured vehicle in front of us, stuck in a traffic jam on the outskirts of Baghdad. He gestured disapprovingly towards our driver for approaching with some speed, then looked to his left and angrily stuck out a middle finger. I followed his gaze and there was a child of no more than eight or nine sitting in a chair in front of the open gates leading to the garden of his house. He was shouting angrily, with a clenched fist of defiance, cutting the air with swift and furious right hooks. (more…)

Commentary - By Mushahid Hussain

ISLAMABAD, Oct (IPS) - On Oct. 7, 2001, when the United States fired the
opening shots in what increasingly looks like an unwinnable war without end
against terrorism in Afghanistan, the commander of the first squadron to
bomb that country had an interesting rationale for the military strike.

He told the U.S. press: ‘’Tonight was about restoring America’s
confidence,'’ which had been shattered in the aftermath of the Sep. 11
terrorist attacks.

But two years later, the United States’ confidence has been far from
restored. (more…)

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct (IPS) - China celebrated 54 years of communist rule with an
outburst of evident liberalism, designed to showcase how the country is
evolving into a modern society, governed by populist and responsive leaders
where ordinary people are entitled to private lives.

Beginning Oct. 1, which marks the anniversary of the communist victory
in China, the state is going to allow its 1.3 billion citizens to marry or
divorce without permission from police or workplace bosses. (more…)

Disputes between the larger members over America pain the east

Martin Woollacott
Published Friday September 19, 2003
The Guardian

After the floods subsided in Prague, a cartoon in one of the newspapers showed the figure of Christ on the Charles Bridge surveying returning tourists and sighing “They’re back". Czechs would sometimes like to have their capital to themselves, but know that, barring calamities, its beauty will always attract outsiders and that it is vital for the economy that it continues to do so. It is just a small rider to the instruction Czechs have had in the limits of the possible over the centuries. That intimacy with the power of external forces is one reason why Prague is a good place from which to view Europe’s current difficulties.
The wilfulness which marks European affairs is more easily grasped from such a vantage point. In this view, France and Germany’s assumption that what they decide on Iraq or the stability pact is essentially European, in a way that decisions by other governments are not, is in the same spectrum as Tony Blair’s opposite course on Iraq, or indeed the Swedish “no” vote last weekend. (more…)

By Fergal Parkinson
BBC correspondent in Florida

Fippinger will now probably lose her home, her
pension, even her freedom

Sitting in her modest two-bedroom home on the west
Florida coast,Faith Fippinger begins to cry as she talks
about the prospect of going to jail.

This spring, the 62-year-old retired schoolteacher
decided to travel to Iraq as a human shield. (more…)

It’s the Policy, Stupid
Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - A blue-ribbon panel on U.S. public diplomacy is
calling on President George W Bush not only to sharply increase funding to
more effectively explain U.S. policy to an increasingly hostile Islamic
world, but also to narrow the gap between U.S. values and what Washington
actually does in the region.

That is the distinct – albeit partially hidden – message a new report
on how better to communicate with Muslim populations from North Africa to
South-east Asia, released at the State Department Wednesday by former
President George H W Bush’s top Middle East adviser, Edward Djerejian. (more…)

By Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Oct 1 (IPS) - A group of Members of the European Parliament is
demanding strong European Union pressure on the United States to ensure fair
treatment of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

A cross-section of parties in the Citizens Rights Committee of the European
Parliament is urging the European Union (EU) to suspend legal cooperation
agreements with the United States if it is not satisfied over the human rights of
prisoners at the detention centre at a U.S. naval base. (more…)

Hi all,

Thank you for taking action to protect the Freedom Riders who were detained on Friday. As is now being widely reported by the AP and others, riders were ordered off their buses into the Border Patrol offices, where they were asked questions about their immigration status. Fortunately, the solidarity of the riders and your phone calls, along with pressure from congressmen and religious figures (see story below), forced the Border Patrol to let them go without having their questions answered. (more…)