By Miren Gutiérrez *

IPS/IFEJ interviews PAOLO DI CROCE, head of Slow Food International

BELLAGIO, Italy, Jul 31 (IPS/IFEJ) - Slow Food, obviously, is the opposite of fast food. And it’s a movement now with more than 100,000 members in 132 countries. But what does “slow food” mean in practical terms?

The question was put to Paolo di Croce, secretary-general of Slow Food International, who spoke about the challenges ahead for “good, clean and fair” food, and the movement itself.
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by Michael Grabell, ProPublica

July 30, 2009. Good Jobs First, a nonprofit group watching the stimulus, released a report on Wednesday rating every state’s stimulus Web site. While some states were deemed impressive, “most are failing to make effective use of online technology to educate taxpayers about the impact of economic stimulus spending,” the group reported.
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By David Cronin

IPS interviews European Commissioner for External Relations BENITA FERRERO-WALDNER

BRUSSELS, Jul 30 (IPS) - Israel enjoys closer relations with the European Union than almost any other foreign country - and work on deepening ties with Israel continues, even as its oppression of the Palestinian people worsens.
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John Lindsay-Poland

The U.S. Air Force made its last flight from its military base in Manta, Ecuador in mid-July; it’s closing because of Ecuador’s concerns over arrogance and aggression. While the Pentagon abided by the eviction, it didn’t use the occasion to re-examine its missions in the region or correct its overreach. On the contrary, the military appears to be escalating its operations in the Andes.
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By Apostolis Fotiadis

IZMIR, Turkey, Jul 29 (IPS) - Isabelle Caillol, an activist with the Turkish branch of the human rights advocacy group Helsinki Citizens Assembly, sent a mass email to pro-migrant activists in Greece in May seeking help to find the family of Abbas Khavari, a 14-year-old Afghan refugee born in Iran.
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AllAfrica Global Media

Johannesburg — UNLESS African states start embracing labour migration by enacting laws that will enable the free flow of skills and talent, the African Union’s (AU’s) facilitation of regional economic co-operation and integration will remain a pipe dream, a United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) expert has said.
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By Marina Litvinsky and Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Jul 28 (IPS) - Despite its conviction that climate change represents a serious threat to national and global security, the administration of President Barack Obama has proposed spending one dollar on addressing the challenge for every nine dollars it intends to spend on the U.S. military, according to a new report by the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).
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Editorial-The Nation

This article appeared in the August 3, 2009 edition of The Nation.

When Congress investigated the Iran/Contra scandal twenty-two years ago, the Republican Representative from Wyoming argued that in matters of national security, executives should do as they please–the legislative branch be damned. This radical position, so completely at odds with the system of checks and balances established by the framers, might have been lost to history except for the fact that the Wyoming Congressman would eventually become the most powerful vice president the nation has ever known. It has long been evident to many that Dick Cheney’s refusal to “bear true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution did much to define the Bush/Cheney co-presidency. Until recently, however, it seemed unlikely that Cheney and his lieutenants would be held to account or that the proper constitutional balance would be restored.
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By Pascal Lamy (*)

GENEVA, Jul (IPS) The world economy remains fragile and the economic outlook is still uncertain. There have been a few encouraging signs recently of better-than-expected performance here and there. Some are interpreting this as an indication that we may be turning the corner with regard to a possible return to previous patterns of economic growth, but excessive optimism is unwarranted.
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By Fareed Zakaria | NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Aug 3, 2009

Tehran needs to work out its turmoil

What is happening in Iran? On the surface, the country has returned to normalcy. Demonstrations have become infrequent, and have been quickly dispersed. But underneath the calm, there is intense activity and the beginnings of a political opposition. In the past week, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the candidate who officially lost last month’s presidential election, has announced his intention to create a “large-scale social movement” to oppose the government and press for a more open political system.
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Wim Dierckxsens, et al.

Two events, three contexts, the answer, two premises, two questions, two consequences and five conclusions and actions.

Event 1

Honduras (Central America): A country of 7.5 million people; one of the smallest and poorest countries in Latin America (poverty rate is 60 %). Known as “Banana Republic” because it was absolutely controlled by the American “United Fruit Company". Located in its territory is a US military base, the “Soto Cano” (Palmerola) base (1), used previously by the United States to launch open and secret military operations against other countries. Honduras has a history of military coups supported up by the USA.
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Analysis by Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler

JERUSALEM, Jul (IPS) - Israel’s newly installed ambassador in Washington says the “disagreement” with the U.S. over Israel’s settlement policy will be resolved “soon". Speaking on Israel Radio, Michael Oren was giving his first interview since taking up his post.
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Eurostat news release

Five million young people unemployed in the EU27 in the first quarter 2009

After three years of decline, the EU unemployment rate started to rise in the first quarter of 2008 in the wake of the economic crisis. Since then the unemployment rate, especially for young people, has increased sharply in the EU.
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By Zoltán Dujisin

SARAJEVO, Jul 23 (IPS) - Sooner or later Bosnians will have to abandon their status of quasi-protectorate, and take control of their own state if they ever want to join the European Union.
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Mark Leon Goldberg - UN Dispatch

July 22, 2009 - Enough Project chief John Norris links approvingly to Randy Newcomb’s Foreign Policy piece explaining why the next 18 months are a make-or-break time for the Save Darfur movement. The argument is that the forthcoming dissolution of Sudan into two separate countries (following a 2011 referendum) may presage the return to civil war.
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Mark Leon Goldberg - UN Dispatch

July 22, 2009 - Enough Project chief John Norris links approvingly to Randy Newcomb’s Foreign Policy piece explaining why the next 18 months are a make-or-break time for the Save Darfur movement. The argument is that the forthcoming dissolution of Sudan into two separate countries (following a 2011 referendum) may presage the return to civil war.
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Tom Loudon *

Three weeks have passed since the military coup d’état in Honduras, yet the United States has failed to join the international community in issuing a clear denunciation of the illegal overthrow of the government of Honduras.
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Analysis by Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler

JERUSALEM, Jul 20 (IPS) - A joke deriding U.S. President Barack Obama is said to be making the rounds in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bureau, according to Aluf Benn, the normally well-informed Ha’aretz diplomatic correspondent: “What do Americans do when anything breaks down in their home - when the sink is blocked, the toilet overflows, or a fuse snaps? Simple: They ask Barack Obama to give a speech and the problem is solved.”
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By Supachai Panitchpakdi (*)

GENEVA, Jul (IPS) The attention of policymakers is being drawn to addressing fiscal policy and financial issues in an effort to close the credit crunch and release financial flows, especially investment.
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Mark Weisbrot

The current standoff in Honduras, in which the coup government headed by Roberto Micheletti is refusing to allow the return of elected president Manuel Zelaya, is raising questions about who is in charge of U.S. foreign policy for the hemisphere.
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By Miren Gutierrez*

IPS interviews AHMED DJOGHLAF, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity

BELLAGIO, Italy, Jul 17 (IPS) - Declining amphibian populations, dwindling fish stocks, waning ocean biodiversity, loss of forests…All scientists acknowledge that the rate of species loss is greater now than at any time in human history.
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By DAVID BROOKS *

If you visit a four-year college, you can predict what sort of student you are going to bump into. If you visit a community college, you have no idea. You might see an immigrant kid hoping eventually to get a Ph.D., or another kid who messed up in high school and is looking for a second chance. You might meet a 35-year-old former meth addict trying to get some job training or a 50-year-old taking classes for fun.
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By Andrew Higgins -Washington Post Foreign Service

Recollections of teachers and former students at a state school in Switzerland may offer a glimpse of the young man some say is destined to lead North Korea.

LIEBEFELD, Switzerland – Thursday, July 16, 2009 - In August 1998, as famine reached a terrible climax in North Korea, the destitute Asian nation enrolled a shy teenager in a Swiss state school. He arrived with a fake name, a collection of genuine, top-of-the-line Nike sneakers and a passion for American basketball.
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By Zoltán Dujisin

SARAJEVO, Jul 16 (IPS) - Apart from sporadic civil society initiatives, Bosnia has attempted little by way of inter-ethnic reconciliation.

Bosnia is today a federation divided into an overwhelmingly Serbian Republika Srpska (RS) and a Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose ten cantons are mostly divided along ethnic lines between Croats and Bosniaks.
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By Julio Godoy

PARIS, Jul 15 (IPS) - The present global economic crisis and the need to reform the international financial architecture should encourage a return to the original focus on development in the international negotiations on agriculture, trade and development, also known as the Doha Round, according to two economists studying the issue.
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Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff - Newsweek

The CIA’s kill teams were modeled on Israel’s hit squads. Newsweek Web Exclusive

A ferocious dispute between the CIA and congressional Democrats centers on an ultrasecret effort launched by agency officials after 9/11 to draw up plans to hunt down and kill terrorists using commando teams similar to those deployed by Israel after the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre, according to a former senior U.S. official.
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By Zoltán Dujisin

IPS interviews KIM YOUNG SEONG, a North Korean defector.

SEOUL, Jul 14 (IPS) - Very little is known about North Korean society considering the country is so isolated the outside world. Those who flee the country refrain from speaking out, fearing persecution against them or their families. IPS’s Zoltán Dujisin caught up with Kim Young Seong, a North Korean defector, who gave a rare insight into North Korean society. The following are extracts from the interview.
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Medea Benjamin

When José David Ellner Romero heard the soldiers breaking down the door of the Globo radio station on the evening of the June 28 coup, he had a flashback. His mind conjured up the terrible images from the 1980s, when he was arrested by the military, thrown into an underground prison and tortured. “I couldn’t stand the thought of going through that hell again, so I got out on the ledge of the windowsill and jumped,” Elner told our delegation. His fractured shoulder, ribs and bruises were minor given that he jumped from the third floor.
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By Maurice Strong (*)

BEIJING, Jul (IPS) A recent study by the Global Humanitarian Forum, headed by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, postulates that the economic and human costs of climate change could now amount to some 125 billion dollars per year and the loss of 300,000 lives. Many more are being increasingly affected, mainly the poor.
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Mark Weisbrot - Guardian.uk

Washington is unwilling to take the side of democracy in Honduras by opposing the coup leaders it helped to train

The military coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras took a new turn when he attempted to return home on Sunday. The military closed the airport and blocked runways to prevent his plane from landing. They also shot several protesters, killing at least one and injuring others.
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By Thoraya Ahmed Obaid (*)

NEW YORK, Jul (IPS) The financial crisis that started in rich countries has deepened into a global crisis that threatens to reverse hard-won gains in education and health in developing countries, and women and children are among those hardest hit. That is why the theme of this year’s World Population Day, 11 July, will focus on increased investments for girls and women to boost economic recovery and long-term equitable growth.
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Bettina Ide *

As a close observer of Latin American political developments both academically and as an activist on the ground, I have closely followed and participated in debates over the ongoing events Honduras. On day ten after the military coup, I feel the need to comment on a theme that keeps reappearing throughout the debate, namely the emphasis that is placed on President Zelaya’s supposed infractions against constitutionality in Honduras. These arguments tend to equate the military overthrow of a democratically elected president with the attempt of Zelaya to gather support for a potential referendum on constitutional reform at the end of his four year term.
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By Lucy Komisar

IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE. AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BOB ROACH:

MIAMI, Jul (IPS) - Recently Bob Roach, Chief Investigator of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the US Senate, took part in a conference in Miami organised by Offshore Alert, a specialised media organisation focused on financial crime.

The conference dealt with offshore financial centres and the significance and global impact of the myriad of business transactions conducted in and through them.
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By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine *

When America is finally ready to reckon with the phenomenon that was Sarah Palin, I suspect we will discover that whatever she represents actually had less to do with her gender, class, or ideology than we now believe. It’s easy to look at the soon-to-be-former governor of Alaska as an iconic feminist, a path-breaking working mother, or noble rabble-rousing populist.
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By Peter Costantini

IPS interviews JANICE FINE, professor and labour expert

SEATTLE, U.S., Jul 8 (IPS) - In Janice Fine’s most recent project, eight workers centres have joined with the Centre for Community Change, where she is a senior fellow for organising and policy, to provide inexpensive financial services to low-wage immigrant workers. The services also provide an income stream and membership base for the centres.
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By Zoltán Dujisin

SEOUL, Jul 7 (IPS) - With the presence of U.S. soldiers, flesh trade is flourishing near the Camp Stanley Camptown close to Seoul.

Since 1945, U.S. troops have been stationed in the Korean peninsula, with their current strength estimated to be 28,500. The country plunged into civil war between 1950 and 1953 and since then, U.S. troops have remained there, claiming to act as a deterrent against North Korea, the country’s communist neighbour. Prostitution in the region is a direct result of their presence, local observers say.
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Raina Kelley - NEWSWEEK

What we don’t know can hurt us.

From the magazine issue dated Jul 13, 2009

If my purse ever gets stolen, it’s Dave Chappelle’s fault. In the spring of 1997, I attended a barbecue at the home of a friend in Los Angeles. Since the party was almost exclusively populated by a particular type of television writer (think Conan O’Brien), I was taken aback when a young black gentleman entered the festivities. Given L.A.’s then-fearsome reputation as the home of rogue cops, riots, and drive-by shootings, I was scared that the newcomer was a crack-crazed Crip out for honky blood. But, no, it was Dave. Once I realized my mistake, I spent the entire evening agreeing with his every word and laughing at all the comedian’s jokes.
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By Michael Deibert *

Interview with Haitian Prime Minister MICHÈLE PIERRE-LOUIS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 3 (IPS) - Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.
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By Frances Robles - Miami Herald

TEGUCIGALPA – The military officers who rushed deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya out of the country Sunday committed a crime but will be exonerated for saving the country from mob violence, the army’s top lawyer said.
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Analysis by Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Jul 2 (IPS) - The future of Palestinian unity talks is far more complex than the bitter rivalry, bloodshed and division which represent the yawning chasm separating Palestine’s two main political factions, Hamas and Fatah.
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John Nichols - The Nation

07/02/2009 .To hear Rush Limbaugh and the tribunes of the totalitarian right tell it, everything is going swimmingly in Honduras.

Yes, the military invaded the home of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya with guns blazing, kidnapped the country’s elected leader and forced him to leave the country.
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Analysis by Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Jul 1 (IPS) - When the Honduran military deposed President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday, in an incident that stirred memories of Cold War military coups in Latin America, it also seems to have caused at least some foreign policy commentators here to revert to positions reminiscent of the Cold War.
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Fareed Zakaria - NEWSWEEK

Historical parallels don’t work in Iran.

From the magazine issue dated Jul 13, 2009

Whenever we see the kinds of images that have been coming out of Iran over the past two weeks, we tend to think back to 1989 and Eastern Europe. That time, when people took to the streets and challenged their governments, those seemingly stable regimes proved to be hollow and quickly collapsed. What emerged was liberal democracy. Could Iran yet undergo its own velvet revolution?
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