Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Oct (IPS) - Most signs of the damages caused by Hurricane Wilma in Mexico’s Caribbean resort of Cancún will have been wiped away before the Christmas holidays. But for those left homeless by Hurricane Stan in the nearby impoverished state of Chiapas, recovery is a distant goal.
(more…)

By Stephen Zunes | October 2005
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org

President George W. Bush’s October 6 address at the National Endowment for Democracy illustrated his administration’s increasingly desperate effort to justify the increasingly unpopular U.S. war in Iraq. The speech focused upon the Bush administration’s claim that the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. occupation forces somehow constituted a grave threat to the security of the United States and the entire civilized world.
(more…)

By Laura Carlsen | October 2005
International Relations Center www.irc-online.org

1. NAFTA Model has Met Significant Resistance in Latin America

NAFTA was negotiated over a decade ago. Since then, many countries in Latin America have seen the growth of civil society movements in opposition to the NAFTA trade model. The governments of several nations, notably Brazil , Venezuela , Argentina , and Uruguay , have criticized the model and urged modifications while emphasizing alternative forms of regional integration under Mercosur. The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) is at an impasse.
(more…)

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - Losing I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, perhaps the most influential national security official without a formal cabinet rank, marks a serious blow to the George W. Bush administration and particularly to the hawks who led the drive to war in Iraq.
(more…)

By Justin Huggler, Asia Correspondent
October 2005

The United Nations almost doubled its appeal for donations for victims of the Pakistan earthquake as some rich nations were accused of contributing nothing to help the survivors.
(more…)

Adam Morrow

CAIRO, Oct (IPS) - Egypt is engaging in intense efforts in a bid to ease pressure on Syria following publication of the preliminary UN report on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

The UN report released Oct. 20 notes “converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement” in the assassination.
(more…)

Source: Reuters
By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON, Oct (Reuters) - Every Tuesday on her way to school in Lesotho, Reitumetse Phooko passes a boy pushing his father to the AIDS clinic in a wheelbarrow because he is too ill to walk.
(more…)

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Oct (IPS) - U.S. human rights groups have denounced before the U.N. Human Rights Committee that there are perhaps dozens of secret detention centres around the world where Washington is holding an unknown number of prisoners as part of its “war on terror".
(more…)

By Laura Carlsen
International Relations Center www.irc-online.org

1. Poor Compensation

Access to the U.S. market is poor compensation for the concessions that Latin American governments are required to make in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with the United States because the United States picks and chooses what access to give, while demanding near total liberalization for entry of its own products.
(more…)

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Oct (IPS) - The United Nations Security Council’s endorsement of talks on the political future of the southern Serbian province of Kosovo provides a new foothold for efforts to resolve one of the Balkan region’s thorniest problems.
(more…)

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Oct (IPS) - As the European Union launched a new programme to investigate ways to curb its greenhouse emissions, environment groups stressed that the bloc could do more to address the challenges of climate change and reap economic and social benefits at the same time.
(more…)

Matt McKinney, Star Tribune

The monolith of the United Nations, which celebrates its 60th anniversary today, is a mosaic of thousands of people, each with a story of how they came to work in the fields of peacekeeping and humanitarian aid. Three Midwesterners share theirs:
(more…)

Analysis by Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Oct (IPS) - With hardly a hint of shame, voices from the Western world’s political establishment are exhibiting a view that seems to say that the lives of people in the developed world matter more than those that populate the South.
(more…)

International Relations Center www.irc-online.org

Both House and Senate leaders recently rejected an administration-backed recommendation by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to allot $300 million of its food aid budget to purchase food grown by local or regional producers. Once again congressional members bowed to special interests, including agroexporters, shipping firms, and nonprofits that deliver U.S. food aid.
(more…)

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Oct (IPS) - The European Union has come under fire for threatening the progress of the Doha round of international trade talks.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) members are working on an outline deal this week, ahead of the body’s mid-December ministerial conference in Hong Kong.
(more…)

By EDITH M. LEDERER
The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS – Armed conflicts have declined by 40 percent since the end of the Cold War primarily because the United Nations was finally able to launch peacekeeping and conflict-prevention operations around the world, according to a new study.
(more…)

The New York Times

UNITED NATIONS, Oct- The United Nations has developed procedures to curb sexual abuse by peacekeepers, but the measures are not being put into force because of a deep-seated culture of tolerating sexual exploitation, an independent review reported Tuesday.
(more…)

Elisa Marincola

MILAN, Italy, Oct (IPS) - This could be “the century of Latin America", as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has proposed, if the region succeeds in more fully consolidating its integration process and building a development model that fosters greater social cohesion and governability.
(more…)

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Oct (IPS) - The Corruption Perceptions Index published by the group Transparency International Tuesday shows high degrees of corruption among developing nations. But banking systems in the West are helping make that possible.
(more…)

By Zia Mian | Editor: John Gershman, IRC
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org

The past few months have seen important developments in relations between the United States and India. Much of the commentary has focused resolutely and rightly on the wisdom and possible consequences of the new agreements on military and nuclear policy and programs. But these recent agreements need also to be seen in the light of the more than 50 years of U.S. efforts to have India become a part of American political, strategic, and economic plans for Asia. What becomes clear is how difficult this proved to be over the years. It begs the question why Indian leaders have finally started to fall in step so easily in the past few years.
(more…)

Leonardo Boff
Theologian

I am not a member of the Workers Party, PT, because I believe that an intellectual must attempt to think about the whole, not a part, whence the word «party» derives… But as a citizen, I am interested in rescuing it, as the patrimony which an organized people, social movements, the left and the Church of Liberation have helped build together. After passing through the clinic that has purged it, I see six fundamental points that can strengthen the PT.
(more…)

Analysis by Saloumeh Peyman

TEHRAN, Oct (IPS) - The fact that it was former president Hashemi Rafsanjani who announced Iran’s readiness to talk on the ‘’country’s nuclear dossier without any pre-condition'’ rather than his hardline successor, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, offers a glimmer of hope for reconciliation with the West on the key nuclear and oil issues.
(more…)

David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian

· States urged to prepare for victims of climate change
· Natural disasters displace more people than wars

Rising sea levels, desertification and shrinking freshwater supplies will create up to 50 million environmental refugees by the end of the decade, experts warn today. Janos Bogardi, director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn, said creeping environmental deterioration already displaced up to 10 million people a year, and the situation would get worse.
“There are well-founded fears that the number of people fleeing untenable environmental conditions may grow exponentially as the world experiences the effects of climate change,” Dr Bogardi said. “This new category of refugee needs to find a place in international agreements. We need to better anticipate support requirements, similar to those of people fleeing other unviable situations.”
(more…)

Analysis by Ferry Biedermann

BEIRUT, Oct (IPS) - Iraqis will vote this weekend in a referendum that is billed as decisive for their political future, and by extension crucial for restoring order in their violence-wracked country. But the country’s leaders and also the main mover behind the political process, the Bush administration, may find that the cycle of violence and political instability cannot be so easily broken.
(more…)

Marian Chiriac

BUCHAREST, Oct (IPS) - The European Commission says a strain of bird flu has been detected in Romania, confirming that the virus is now at EU gates.
(more…)

by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Some 60 years ago Arnold Toynbee concluded, in his monumental “Study of
History,” that the ultimate cause of imperial collapse was “suicidal
statecraft.” Sadly for George W. Bush’s place in history and much more
important ominously for America’s future, that adroit phrase increasingly
seems applicable to the policies pursued by the United States since the
cataclysm of 9/11.
(more…)

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Oct (IPS) - A new EU aid plan aims to ensure that Africa achieves the Millennium Development Goals.

An ‘EU Strategy for Africa: Towards a Euro-African pact to accelerate Africa’s Development’ announced Wednesday says peace and security, good governance, better trade links and improved education are key to ensure that the goals are achieved.
(more…)

Al Gore *
October 2005

“Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, does it feel right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the practice?”
(more…)

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Oct (IPS) - Civil society groups will be taking to the streets beginning this week, staging demonstrations around the world in the run-up to the December WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong.
(more…)

voltairenet.org

According to the calculations of the US General Accounting Office, quoted by the magazine Manufacturing & Technology News dated September 1st, 2005, since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. armed forces have used more than 1.8 billion bullets of 5.56 mm in its M-16 and derivatives.

We do know that according to the spokesmen of the Coalition, the number of insurgents is close to 20,000, which accounts for 90 000 bullets shot per insurgent. This gives us an idea about the ineffectiveness of the American troops and the magnitude of their mistakes.

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Oct (IPS) - The United Nations, which has taken a severe beating in recent months over charges of fraud, corruption and cronyism, received a morale booster Friday with news of a Nobel Peace Prize to one of its sister agencies.
(more…)

Michael Hopkins
CEO, MHC International Ltd.

One aspect of CSR is the link between large companies and development. But, the business of business is business, so why should corporations be involved in development? They are to a certain extent already but should they do more?
(more…)

Stelios Fotinos

ATHENS, Oct (IPS) - Non-governmental organisations are seeking ways of doing their bit to save the Mediterranean Sea. They say it can do with some saving.

Experts from regional United Nations organisations, local authorities, trade unions, the industrial sector and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from the Mediterranean area will gather in Athens Oct. 10 and 11 to join efforts to find remedies for what they see as a sickness of the sea.
(more…)

As has long been recognized by the European Union, employment is an essential tool in combating poverty. However, labor market insufficiencies often produce what is known as in-work poverty, when holding jobs is not enough to make a decent living. Many European countries have been slow in reacting to evidence.
(more…)

By Tom Barry |
Americas Program, International Relations Center (IRC) americas.irc-online.org

What to do with Hugo? That’s a question that is bedeviling the Bush administration, which sees its centuries-old hegemonic hold on Latin America and the Caribbean slipping.

As President Hugo Chavez adeptly leverages Venezuela’s oil wealth to forge an array of regional alliances that leave the United States out in the cold, U.S. – Venezuela tensions are heating up. Boosted by the rising prices of oil and the deepening regional anger over U.S. imperial arrogance, Chavez has proved able not only to construct a counter-hegemonic constituency in Venezuela among the country’s poor majority but also to piece together a regional network that is challenging U.S. political and economic dominance. Uncle Sam is becoming the odd man out in the hemisphere claimed as U.S. domain since the early 19 th century.
(more…)

Analysis by Tito Drago

MADRID, Oct (IPS) - Spain’s announcement that it plans to build a third fence to separate its enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco, using the most advanced technology aimed at keeping out undocumented immigrants, has drawn loud criticism while giving rise to many questions.
(more…)

XINHUA

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) – With over 200 million youth around the world living in poverty, 130 million illiterate, 88 million unemployed, and 10 million having HIV/AIDS, today’s youth are dealing with serious challenges and concerns, a UN report released on Tuesday said.
(more…)

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) - Despite strong opposition from the Pentagon and the White House, the Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate is coming under growing pressure to set specific standards for the “humane” treatment of detainees taken in Iraq and elsewhere in the George W. Bush administration’s “war on terror".
(more…)

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK , Oct 4 (IPS) - For most of his adult life, Dr. Suthee Yoksan has toiled in the hope of defeating the mosquito that spreads dengue fever in South-east Asia.

‘’It is now 25 years,'’ says the 55-year-old Thai medical researcher of a project he has been involved with since 1980 – to develop a vaccine against the disease. And the likelihood of a successful vaccine coming out for public use is still some time away, maybe three years.
(more…)

ByFrances Williams in Geneva
Financial Times
Published: October 3 2005 20:00

Populist politicians and scare-mongering media campaigns are cynically fanning xenophobic fears and prejudices and putting protection of genuine refugees at risk, the new head of the United Nations refugee agency warned on Monday.

Antonío Guterres, former Portuguese prime minister, who took over as High Commissioner for Refugees in June, said rising intolerance was the most difficult contemporary challenge faced by the agency.
(more…)

By Peter H. Gleick

The Pacific Institute

‘Political’ Science: The Rise of Junk Science and the Fall of Reason – A Guest Commentary . October 03, 2005

Democracy depends on information and good science. And in a democracy that faces a dizzying array of threats and challenges, the need for sound knowledge has never been more important. Our national security, environmental well-being, and personal health rest on a true understanding of critical issues, like climate change, water shortages, and industrial pollution.
(more…)

Bill Berkowitz*

OAKLAND, California, Oct 3 (IPS) - After more than 30 ¬thirty years of organising testimonial dinners for right-wing Israeli politicians, handing out checks to Israeli charities, and forming alliances with conservative Jewish leaders and groups, evangelical Christians may finally be getting a chunk of the “Promised Land".
(more…)