OCCUPY: A Day in the Life: 11/23-25/13
Prez
Climate-Change Summary and Update
Sun, Jan 6, 2013
Updated frequently, and most recently 20 November 2013. ** Latest additions are flagged with two asterisks on each side. **
American actress Lily Tomlin is credited with the expression, “No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.” With respect to climate science, my own efforts to stay abreast are blown away every week by new data, models, and assessments. It seems no matter how dire the situation becomes, it only gets worse when I check the latest reports.
The response of politicians, heads of non-governmental organizations, and corporate leaders remains the same. They’re mired in the dank Swamp of Nothingness. As Hallor Thorgeirsson, a senior director with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said on 17 September 2013: “We are failing as an international community. We are not on track.” These are the people who know about, and presumably could do something about, our ongoing race to disaster (if only to sound the alarm). Tomlin’s line is never more germane than when thinking about their pursuit of a buck at the expense of life on Earth.
Worse than the aforementioned trolls are the media. Fully captured by corporations and the corporate states, the media continue to dance around the issue of climate change. Occasionally a forthright piece is published, but it generally points in the wrong direction, such as suggesting climate scientists and activists be killed (e.g., James Delingpole’s 7 April 2013 hate-filled article in the Telegraph).
Even mainstream scientists minimize the message at every turn. As we’ve known for years, scientists almost invariably underplay climate impacts. I’m not implying conspiracy among scientists. Science selects for conservatism. Academia selects for extreme conservatism. These folks are loathe to risk drawing undue attention to themselves by pointing out there might be a threat to civilization. Never mind the near-term threat to our entire species (they couldn’t care less about other species). If the truth is dire, they can find another, not-so-dire version. The concept is supported by an article in the February 2013 issue of Global Environmental Change pointing out that climate-change scientists routinely underestimate impacts “by erring on the side of least drama.” Ever late to the party, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admits global warming is irreversible without geoengineering in a report released 27 September 2013.
If you’re too busy to read the evidence presented below, here’s the bottom line: On a planet 4 C hotter than baseline, all we can prepare for is human extinction (from Oliver Tickell’s 2008 synthesis in the Guardian). Tickell is taking a conservative approach, considering humans have not been present at 3.5 C above baseline (i.e., the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, commonly accepted as 1750). According to the World Bank’s 2012 report, “Turn down the heat: why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided” and an informed assessment of “BP Energy Outlook 2030” put together by Barry Saxifrage for the Vancouver Observer, our path leads directly to the 4 C mark. The 19th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 19), held in November 2013 in Warsaw, Poland, was warned by professor of climatology Mark Maslin: “We are already planning for a 4°C world because that is where we are heading. I do not know of any scientists who do not believe that.”
According to Colin Goldblatt, author of a paper published online in the 28 July 2013 issue of Nature Geoscience, “The runaway greenhouse may be much easier to initiate than previously thought.” Furthermore, as pointed out in the 1 August 2013 issue of Science, in the near term Earth’s climate will change orders of magnitude faster than at any time during the last 65 million years. Tack on, without the large and growing number of self-reinforcing feedback loops we’ve triggered recently, the 5 C rise in global-average temperature 55 million years ago during a span of 13 years, and it looks like trouble ahead for the wise ape.
Finally, far too late, the New Yorker posits a relevant question on 5 November 2013: Is It Too Late to Prepare for Climate Change?
All of the above information fails to include the excellent work by Tim Garrett, which points out that only complete collapse avoids runaway greenhouse. Garrett reached the conclusion in a paper submitted in 2007 (personal communication) and published online by Climatic Change in November 2009 (outcry from civilized scientists delayed formal publication until February 2011). The paper remains largely ignored by the scientific community, having been cited fewer than ten times since its publication.
According to Yvo de Boer, who was executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2009, when attempts to reach a deal at a summit in Copenhagen crumbled with a rift between industrialized and developing nations, “the only way that a 2015 agreement can achieve a 2-degree goal is to shut down the whole global economy.” Politicians finally have caught up with Tim Garrett’s excellent paper in Climatic Change.
Writing for the Arctic Methane Emergency Group, John Davies concludes: “The world is probably at the start of a runaway Greenhouse Event which will end most human life on Earth before 2040.” He considers only atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, not the many self-reinforcing feedback loops described below.
On the topic of tipping points, we crossed the Rubicon in 2007 at about 0.76 C warming. At this point, according to David Spratt’s excellent September 2013 report, “Is Climate Already Dangerous?”, not only had Arctic sea-ice passed its tipping point, but the Greenland Ice Sheet was not far behind, as the Arctic moves to sea-ice-free conditions in summer. Glaciologist Jason Box, an expert on Greenland ice, agrees. Box was quoted in a 5 December 2012 article in the Guardian: “In 2012 Greenland crossed a threshold where for the first time we saw complete surface melting at the highest elevations in what we used to call the dry snow zone. … As Greenland crosses the threshold and starts really melting in the upper elevations it really won’t recover from that unless the climate cools significantly for an extended period of time which doesn’t seem very likely.”
If you think we’ll adapt, think again. The rate of evolution trails the rate of climate change by a factor of 10,000, according to a paper in the August 2013 issue of Ecology Letters. And it’s not as if extinction events haven’t happened on this planet, as explained in the BBC program, The Day the Earth Nearly Died.
The rate of climate change clearly has gone beyond linear, as indicated by the presence of the myriad self-reinforcing feedback loops described below, and now threatens our species with extinction in the near term. Anthropologist Louise Leakey ponders our near-term demise in her 5 July 2013 assessment at Huffington Post and Canadian wildlife biologist Neil Dawe joins party of near-term extinction in an interview 29 August 2013 and musician-turned-activist Sir Bob Geldof joins the fray in a Daily Star article from 6 October 2013. In the face of near-term human extinction, most Americans view the threat as distant and irrelevant, as illustrated by a 22 April 2013 article in the Washington Post based on poll results that echo the long-held sentiment that elected officials should be focused on the industrial economy, not far-away minor nuisances such as climate change.
This essay brings attention to recent projections and positive feedbacks. I presented much of this information at the Bluegrass Bioneers conference (Alex Smith at Radio Ecoshock evaluates my presentation here). More recently, I presented an updated version on the campus of the University of Massachusetts. All information and sources are readily confirmed with an online search, and links to information about feedbacks can be found here.
Large-scale assessments
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (late 2007): 1 C by 2100
Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research (late 2008): 2 C by 2100
Later in 2008, Hadley Center’s head of climate change predictions Dr. Vicky Pope calls for a worst-case outcome of more than 5 C by 2100. Joe Romm, writing for Grist, claims, “right now even Hadley [Centre] understands it [> 5 C] is better described as the ‘business-as-usual’ case.”
United Nations Environment Programme (mid 2009): 3.5 C by 2100
Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research (October 2009): 4 C by 2060
Global Carbon Project, Copenhagen Diagnosis (November 2009): 6 C, 7 C by 2100
United Nations Environment Programme (December 2010): up to 5 C by 2050
International Energy Agency (November 2013): 3.5 C by 2035
These assessments fail to account for significant self-reinforcing feedback loops (i.e., positive feedbacks, the term that implies the opposite of its meaning). The IPCC’s vaunted Fifth Assessment will continue the trend as it, too, ignores important feedbacks. On a positive note, major assessments fail to account for economic collapse. However, due to the four-decade lag between emissions and temperature rise as well as the feedback loops presented below, I strongly suspect it’s too late for economic collapse to extend the run of our species.
Taking a broad view
Astrophysicists have long believed Earth was near the center of the habitable zone for humans. Recent research published in the 10 March 2013 issue of Astrophysical Journal indicates Earth is on the inner edge of the habitable zone, and lies within 1% of inhabitability (1.5 million km, or 5 times the distance from Earth to Earth’s moon). A minor change in Earth’s atmosphere removes human habitat. Unfortunately, we’ve invoked major changes.
The northern hemisphere is particularly susceptible to accelerated warming, as explained in the 8 April 2013 issue of Journal of Climate. Two days later, a paper in Nature confirmed that summers in the northern hemisphere are hotter than they’ve been for 600 years. As pointed out by Sherwood and Huber in the 25 May 2012 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and then by James Hansen points out in his 15 April 2013 paper, humans cannot survive a wet-bulb temperature of 35 C (95 F).
As described by the United Nations Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases in 1990, “Beyond 1 degree C may elicit rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage” (link mirrored here). Planetary instruments indicate Earth has warmed about 1 C since the beginning of the industrial revolution. However, plants in the vicinity of Concord, Massachusetts — where the instrumental record indicates warming of about 1 C — indicate warming of 2.4 C since the 1840s.
Whether you believe the plants or the instruments is irrelevant at the point. We’ve clearly triggered the types of positive feedbacks the United Nations warned about in 1990. Yet my colleagues and acquaintances think we can and will work our way out of this horrific mess with permaculture (which is not to denigrate permaculture, the principles of which are implemented at the mud hut). Reforestation doesn’t come close to overcoming combustion of fossil fuels, as pointed out in the 30 May 2013 issue of Nature Climate Change. Furthermore, forested ecosystems do not sequester additional carbon dioxide as it increases in the atmosphere, as disappointingly explained in the 6 August 2013 issue of New Phytologist. Adding egregious insult to spurting wound, the latest public-education initiative in the United States — the Next Generation Science Standards — buries the relationship between combustion of fossil fuels and planetary warming. The misadventures of the corporate government continue, even as collapse of ecosystems is fully under way. As pointed out in the April 2013 issue of PLoS ONE — too little, too late for many ecosystems — “catastrophic collapses can occur without prior warning.”
Let’s ignore the models for a moment and consider only the results of a single briefing to the United Nations Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen (COP15). Regulars in this space will recall COP15 as the climate-change meetings thrown under the bus by the Obama administration. A summary of that long-forgotten briefing contains this statement: “THE LONG-TERM SEA LEVEL THAT CORRESPONDS TO CURRENT CO2 CONCENTRATION IS ABOUT 23 METERS ABOVE TODAY’S LEVELS, AND THE TEMPERATURES WILL BE 6 DEGREES C OR MORE HIGHER. THESE ESTIMATES ARE BASED ON REAL LONG TERM CLIMATE RECORDS, NOT ON MODELS.”
In other words, near-term extinction of humans was already guaranteed, to the knowledge of Obama and his administration (i.e., the Central Intelligence Agency, which runs the United States and controls presidential power). Even before the dire feedbacks were reported by the scientific community, the administration abandoned climate change as a significant issue because it knew we were done as early as 2009. Rather than shoulder the unenviable task of truth-teller, Obama did as his imperial higher-ups demanded: He lied about collapse, and he lied about climate change. And he still does.
Ah, those were the good ol’ days, back when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were below 400 parts per million (ppm). We’ll blow through the 400 ppm mark soon, probably for the first time in 3.2 to 5 million years. And, as reported in the journal Global and Planetary Change in April 2013, every molecule of atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1980 comes from human emissions. Not to be outdone, methane levels reached an average mean of 1800 parts per billion (ppb) on the morning of 16 June 2013, and seeps are appearing in numerous locations off the eastern coast of the United States, leading to rapid destabilization of methane hydrates (according to the 25 October 2013 issue of Nature). This figure is 1100 ppb higher than pre-industrial peak levels. Methane release tracks closely with temperature rise throughout Earth history — ** specifically, Arctic methane release and rapid global temperature rise are interlinked ** — including a temperature rise up to about 1 C per year over a decade, according to data from ice cores.
Positive feedbacks
1. Methane hydrates are bubbling out the Arctic Ocean (Science, March 2010). According to NASA’s CARVE project, these plumes were up to 150 kilometers across as of mid-July 2013. Whereas Malcolm Light’s 9 February 2012 forecast of extinction of all life on Earth by the middle of this century appears premature because his conclusion of exponential methane release during summer 2011 was based on data subsequently revised and smoothed by U.S. government agencies, subsequent information — most notably from NASA’s CARVE project — indicates the grave potential for catastrophic release of methane. (I doubt industrial civilization manages to kill all life on Earth, although that clearly is the goal.) Catastrophically rapid release of methane in the Arctic is further supported by Nafeez Ahmed’s thorough analysis in the 5 August 2013 issue of the Guardian as well as Natalia Shakhova’s 29 July 2013 interview with Nick Breeze (note the look of abject despair at the eight-minute mark). In early November 2013, methane levels well in excess of 2,600 ppb were recorded at multiple altitudes in the Arctic.
2. Warm Atlantic water is defrosting the Arctic as it shoots through the Fram Strait (Science, January 2011).
3. Siberian methane vents have increased in size from less than a meter across in the summer of 2010 to about a kilometer across in 2011 (Tellus, February 2011)
4. Drought in the Amazon triggered the release of more carbon than the United States in 2010 (Science, February 2011). In addition, ongoing deforestation in the region is driving declines in precipitation at a rate much faster than long thought, as reported in the 19 July 2013 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
5. Peat in the world’s boreal forests is decomposing at an astonishing rate (Nature Communications, November 2011)
6. Invasion of tall shrubs warms the soil, hence destabilizes the permafrost (Environmental Research Letters, March 2012)
7. Greenland ice is darkening (The Cryosphere, June 2012)
8. Methane is being released from the Antarctic, too (Nature, August 2012). According to a paper in the 24 July 2013 issue of Scientific Reports, melt rate in the Antarctic has caught up to the Arctic.
9. Russian forest and bog fires are growing (NASA, August 2012), a phenomenon consequently apparent throughout the northern hemisphere (Nature Communications, July 2013). The New York Times reports hotter, drier conditions leading to huge fires in western North America as the “new normal” in their 1 July 2013 issue. A paper in the 22 July 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates boreal forests are burning at a rate exceeding that of the last 10,000 years.
10. Cracking of glaciers accelerates in the presence of increased carbon dioxide (Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, October 2012)
11. The Beaufort Gyre apparently has reversed course (U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, October 2012)
12. Exposure to sunlight increases bacterial conversion of exposed soil carbon, thus accelerating thawing of the permafrost (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 2013)
13. The microbes have joined the party, too, according to a paper in the 23 February 2013 issue of New Scientist
14. Summer ice melt in Antarctica is at its highest level in a thousand years: Summer ice in the Antarctic is melting 10 times quicker than it was 600 years ago, with the most rapid melt occurring in the last 50 years (Nature Geoscience, April 2013). Although scientists have long expressed concern about the instability of the West Atlantic Ice Sheet (WAIS), a research paper published in the 28 August 2013 of Nature indicates the East Atlantic Ice Sheet (EAIS) has undergone rapid changes in the past five decades. The latter is the world’s largest ice sheet and was previously thought to be at little risk from climate change. But it has undergone rapid changes in the past five decades, signaling a potential threat to global sea levels. The EAIS holds enough water to raise sea levels more than 50 meters.
15. Floods in Canada are sending pulses of silty water out through the Mackenzie Delta and into the Beaufort Sea, thus painting brown a wide section of the Arctic Ocean near the Mackenzie Delta brown (NASA, June 2013)
16. Surface meltwater draining through cracks in an ice sheet can warm the sheet from the inside, softening the ice and letting it flow faster, according to a study accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface (July 2013). It appears a Heinrich Event has been triggered in Greenland. Consider the description of such an event as provided by Robert Scribbler on 8 August 2013:
In a Heinrich Event, the melt forces eventually reach a tipping point. The warmer water has greatly softened the ice sheet. Floods of water flow out beneath the ice. Ice ponds grow into great lakes that may spill out both over top of the ice and underneath it. Large ice damns (sic) may or may not start to form. All through this time ice motion and melt is accelerating. Finally, a major tipping point is reached and in a single large event or ongoing series of such events, a massive surge of water and ice flush outward as the ice sheet enters an entirely chaotic state. Tsunamis of melt water rush out bearing their vast floatillas (sic) of ice burgs (sic), greatly contributing to sea level rise. And that’s when the weather really starts to get nasty. In the case of Greenland, the firing line for such events is the entire North Atlantic and, ultimately the Northern Hemisphere.
17. Breakdown of the thermohaline conveyor belt is happening in the Antarctic as well as the Arctic, thus leading to melting of Antarctic permafrost (Scientific Reports, July 2013)
18. Loss of Arctic sea ice is reducing the temperature gradient between the poles and the equator, thus causing the jet stream to slow and meander. One result is the creation of weather blocks such as the recent very high temperatures in Alaska. As a result, boreal peat dries and catches fire like a coal seam. The resulting soot enters the atmosphere to fall again, coating the ice surface elsewhere, thus reducing albedo and hastening the melting of ice. Each of these individual phenomena has been reported, albeit rarely, but to my knowledge the dots have not been connected beyond this space. The inability or unwillingness of the media to connect two dots is not surprising, and has been routinely reported (recently including here with respect to climate change and wildfires) (July 2013)
19. Arctic ice is growing darker, hence less reflective (Nature Climate Change, August 2013)
20. Extreme weather events drive climate change, as reported in the 15 August 2013 issue of Nature (Nature, August 2013)
21. Ocean acidification leads to release of less dimethyl sulphide (DMS) by plankton. DMS shields Earth from radiation. (Nature Climate Change, online 25 August 2013)
22. Sea-level rise causes slope collapse, tsunamis, and release of methane, as reported in the September 2013 issue of Geology. In eastern Siberia, the speed of coastal erosion has nearly doubled during the last four decades as the permafrost melts.
23. Rising ocean temperatures will upset natural cycles of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and phosphorus, hence reducing plankton (Nature Climate Change, September 2013)
24. Earthquakes trigger methane release, and consequent warming of the planet triggers earthquakes, as reported by Sam Carana at the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (October 2013)
25. ** Small ponds in the Canadian Arctic are releasing far more methane than expected based on their aerial cover (PLoS ONE, November 2013) **
26. Arctic drilling was fast-tracked by the Obama administration during the summer of 2012
27. Supertankers are taking advantage of the slushy Arctic, demonstrating that every catastrophe represents a business opportunity, as pointed out by Professor of journalism Michael I. Niman and picked up by Truthout (ArtVoice, September 2013)
As nearly as I can distinguish, only the latter two feedback processes are reversible at a temporal scale relevant to our species. Once you pull the tab on the can of beer, there’s no keeping the carbon dioxide from bubbling up and out. These feedbacks are not additive, they are multiplicative. Now that we’ve entered the era of expensive oil, I can’t imagine we’ll voluntarily terminate the process of drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic (or anywhere else). Nor will we willingly forgo a few dollars by failing to take advantage of the long-sought Northwest Passage.
Robin Westenra provides an assessment of these positive feedbacks at Seemorerocks on 14 July 2013. It’s worth a look.
See how far we’ve come
Never mind that American naturalist George Perkins Marsh predicted anthropogenic climate change as a result of burning fossil fuels in 1847. Never mind that climate risks have been underestimated for the last 20 Years, or that the IPCC’s efforts have failed miserably. After all, climate scientist Kevin Anderson tells us what I’ve known for years: politicians and the scientists writing official reports on climate change are lying, and we have less time than most people can imagine. Never mind David Wasdell pointed out in 2008 that we must have a period of negative radiative forcing merely to end up with a stable, non-catastrophic climate system. Never mind that even the Atlantic is displaying “five charts about climate change that should have you very, very worried.” Never mind that atmospheric carbon dioxide is affecting satellites. Never mind that even the occasional economic analyst is telling climate scientists to be persuasive, be brave, and be arrested. Never mind that Peruvian ice requiring 1,600 years to accumulate has melted in the last 25 years, according to a paper in the 4 April 2013 issue of Science. And never mind that warming in the interior of large continents in the northern hemisphere has outstripped model predictions in racing to 6-7 C already, according to a paper that tallies temperature rise in China’s interior in the 15 May 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Never mind all that: Future temperatures likely will be at the higher end of the projected range because the forecasts are all too conservative and also because climate negotiations won’t avert catastrophe.
Through late March 2013, global oceans have risen approximately ten millimeters per year during the last two years. This rate of rise is over three times the rate of sea level rise during the time of satellite-based observations from 1993 to the present. Ocean temperatures are rising, and have been impacting global fisheries for four decades, according to the 16 May 2013 issue of Nature.
Actually, catastrophe is already here, although it’s not widely distributed in the United States. Well, not yet, even though the continental U.S. experienced its highest temperature ever in 2012, shattering the 1998 record by a full degree Fahrenheit. But the east coast of North America experienced its hottest water temperatures all the way to the bottom of the ocean. The epic dust bowl of 2012 grew and grew and grew all summer long. As pointed out in the March 2004 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, disappearing sea ice is expectedly contributing to the drying of the western United States (more definitive research on the topic appeared in the December 2005 issue of Earth Interactions). Equally expectedly, the drought arrived 40 years early.
Even James Hansen and Makiko Sato are asking whether the loss of ice on Greenland has gone exponential (while ridiculously calling for a carbon tax to “fix” the “problem”), and the tentative answer is not promising, based on very recent data, including a nearly five-fold increase in melting of Greenland’s ice since the 1990s and a stunning melting of 98 percent of Greenland’s ice surface between 8 and 15 July 2012. The mainstream media are finally taking notice, with the 18 July 2013 issue of Washington Post reporting the ninth highest April snow cover in the northern hemisphere giving way to the third lowest snow cover on record the following month (relevant records date to 1967, and the article is headlined, “Snow and Arctic sea ice extent plummet suddenly as globe bakes”).
On a particularly dire note for humanity, climate change causes early death of 400,000 people each year. Adding to our misery are interactions between various aspects of environmental decay. For example, warming in the Arctic is causing the release of toxic chemicals long trapped in the region’s snow, ice, ocean and soil, according to research published in the 24 July 2011 issue of Nature Climate Change.
Greenhouse-gas emissions keep rising, and keep setting records. According to 10 June 2013 report by the International Energy Agency, the horrific trend continued in 2012, when carbon dioxide emissions set a record for the fifth consecutive year. The trend puts disaster in the cross-hairs, with the ever-conservative International Energy Agency claiming we’re headed for a temperature in excess of 5 C.
Completely contrary to the popular contrarian myth, global warming has accelerated, with more overall global warming in the past 15 years than the prior 15 years. This warming has resulted in about 90% of overall global warming going into heating the oceans, and the oceans have been warming dramatically, according to a paper published in the March 2013 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Even Slate magazine figured it out by 5 November 2013, and The Guardian‘s headline from 13 November 2013 announces, “Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows.” About 30% of the ocean warming over the past decade has occurred in the deeper oceans below 700 meters, which is unprecedented over at least the past half century. According to a paper in the 1 November 2013 issue of Science, the rate of warming of the Pacific Ocean during the last 60 years is 15 times faster than at any time during the last 10,000 years. The death spiral of Arctic sea ice is well under way, as shown in the video below.
In the category of myth busting comes recent research published in the August 2013 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Contrary to the notion that changing solar radiation is responsible for rising global temperature, the amount of solar radiation passing through Earth’s atmosphere and reaching the ground globally peaked in the 1930s, substantially decreased from the 1940s to the 1970s, and changed little after that.
Global loss of sea ice matches the trend in the Arctic. It’s down, down, and down some more, with the five lowest values on record all happening in the last seven years (through 2012). As reported in a June 2013 issue of Science, the Antarctic’s ice shelves are melting from below. When interviewed for the associated article in the 13 June 2013 issue of National Geographic, scientists expressed surprise at the rate of change. Color me shocked. Three months later, the 13 September 2013 issue of Science contains another surprise for mainstream scientists: The Pine Island Glacier is melting from below as a result of warming seawater.
Then see where we’re going
The climate situation is much worse than I’ve led you to believe, and is accelerating far more rapidly than accounted for by models. Even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges, in a press release dated 6 June 2013, potentially lethal heat waves on the near horizon. Piling on a month later, the World Meteorological Organization pointed out that Earth experienced unprecedented recorded climate extremes during the decade 2001-2010, contributing to more than a 2,000 percent increase in heat-related deaths.
Ice sheet loss continues to increase at both poles, and warming of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is twice the earlier scientific estimate. Arctic ice at all-time low, half that of 1980, and the Arctic lost enough sea ice to cover Canada and Alaska in 2012 alone. In short, summer ice in the Arctic is nearly gone. Furthermore, the Arctic could well be free of ice by summer 2015, an event that last occurred some three million years ago, before the genus Homo walked the planet. Among the consequences of declining Arctic ice is extremes in cold weather in northern continents (thus illustrating why “climate change” is a better term than “global warming”). In a turn surprising only to mainstream climate scientists, Greenland ice is melting rapidly.
Even the conservative International Energy Agency (IEA) has thrown in the towel, concluding that “renewable” energy is not keeping up with the old, dirty standard sources. As a result, the IEA report dated 17 April 2013 indicates the development of low-carbon energy is progressing too slowly to limit global warming.
The Arctic isn’t Vegas — what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic — it’s the planet’s air conditioner. In fact, as pointed out 10 June 2013 by research scientist Charles Miller of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory: “Climate change is already happening in the Arctic, faster than its ecosystems can adapt. Looking at the Arctic is like looking at the canary in the coal mine for the entire Earth system.” In addition, “average summer temperatures in the Canadian Arctic are now at the highest they’ve been for approaching 50,000 years” (and perhaps up to 120,000 years) according to a paper published online 23 October 2013 in Geophysical Research Letters. On the topic of rapidity of change, a paper in the August 2013 issue of Ecology Letters points out that rates of projected climate change dramatically exceed past rates of climatic niche evolution among vertebrate species. In other words, vertebrates cannot evolve or adapt rapidly enough to keep up with ongoing and projected changes in climate.
How critical is Arctic ice? Whereas nearly 80 calories are required to melt a gram of ice at 0 C, adding 80 calories to the same gram of water at 0 C increases its temperature to 80 C. Anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions add more than 2.5 trillion calories to Earth’s surface every hour (ca. 3 watts per square meter, continuously).
Ocean acidification associated with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is proceeding at an unprecedented rate — the fastest in 300 million years — leading to great simplification of ecosystems, and capable of triggering mass extinction by itself. Already, half the Great Barrier Reef has died during the last three decades. As with many attributes, the Arctic Ocean leads the way in acidification. And ocean acidification is hardly the only threat on the climate-change front. As one little-discussed example, atmospheric oxygen levels are dropping to levels considered dangerous for humans, particularly in cities.
An increasing number of scientists agree that warming of 4 to 6 C causes a dead planet. And, they go on to say, we’ll be there by 2060. Earth-system scientist Clive Hamilton concludes in his April 2013 book Earthmasters that “without [atmospheric sulphates associated with industrial activity] … Earth would be an extra 1.1 C warmer.” In other words, collapse takes us directly to 2 C within a matter of weeks. Several other academic scientists have concluded, in the refereed journal literature no less, that the 2 C mark is essentially impossible (for example, see the review paper by Mark New and colleagues published in the 29 November 2010 issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A). The German Institute for International and Security Affairs concluded 2 June 2013 that a 2 C rise in global-average temperature is no longer feasible (and Spiegel agrees, finally, in their 7 June 2013 issue), while the ultra-conservative International Energy Agency concludes that, “coal will nearly overtake oil as the dominant energy source by 2017 … without a major shift away from coal, average global temperatures could rise by 6 degrees Celsius by 2050, leading to devastating climate change.” At the 11:20 mark of this video, climate scientist Paul Beckwith indicates Earth could warm by 6 C within a decade. If you think his view is extreme, consider (1) the 5 C rise in global-average temperature 55 million years ago during a span of 13 years (reported in the 1 October 2013 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), and also (2) the reconstruction of regional and global temperature for the past 11,300 years published in Science in March 2013. One result is shown in the figure below.
It’s not merely scientists who know where we’re going. The Pentagon is bracing for public dissent over climate and energy shocks, as reported by Nafeez Ahmed in the 14 June 2013 issue of the Guardian. According to Ahmed’s article: “Top secret US National Security Agency (NSA) documents disclosed by the Guardian have shocked the world with revelations of a comprehensive US-based surveillance system with direct access to Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech giants. New Zealand court records suggest that data harvested by the NSA’s Prism system has been fed into the Five Eyes intelligence alliance whose members also include the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.” In short, the “Pentagon knows that environmental, economic and other crises could provoke widespread public anger toward government and corporations” and is planning accordingly. Such “activity is linked to the last decade of US defence planning, which has been increasingly concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home triggered by catastrophic events linked to climate change, energy shocks or economic crisis — or all three.” The global police state has arrived.
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Climate Change, Geoengineering and Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD)
Discussion of ENMOD is taboo. It is an unspoken truth. Scientists dare not address it as part of the debate on climate change. While ENMOD is firmly documented, these same scientists will readily assert without evidence that global warming (resulting from excess CO2 emissions) is the cause of tropical storms.
ENMOD technologies not only exist, they are fully operational. Confirmed by US military documents, a typhoon, a tsunami or an earthquake can be triggered by the use of ENMOD technologies. The issue, therefore, must be addressed by climate specialists.
What we are suggesting is that in investigating the underlying causes of extreme weather events the issue of climatic manipulation can by no means be excluded.
Ironically, the existence of ENMOD technologies was acknowledged more than 30 years back by the United Nations in a binding 1977 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques.
The Convention defined ENMOD as “any technique for changing – through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes – the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.” What is at stake is “the intentional modification or manipulation of the natural ecology, such as climate and weather, earth systems”. In removing ENMOD from the debate on climate change, the UNFCC is a blatant violation of the 1977 UN Convention.
Environmental modification techniques have been applied by the US military for more than half a century. US mathematician John von Neumann, in liaison with the US Department of Defense, started his research on weather modification in the late 1940s at the height of the Cold War and foresaw ‘forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined’. During the Vietnam war, cloud-seeding techniques were used, starting in 1967 under Project Popeye, the objective of which was to prolong the monsoon season and block enemy supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Since the heyday of the Vietnam war, ENMOD technologies for military use have evolved significantly. We are dealing with highly sophisticated weapons systems.
The possibility of climatic or environmental manipulations as part of a military and intelligence agenda, while tacitly acknowledged, is never considered as relevant. Military analysts are mute on the subject. Meteorologists are not investigating the matter, and environmentalists are strung on global warming and the Kyoto protocol.
It is worth noting that barely two months prior to the The Philippines Typhoon disaster, CBS This Morning in an interview with Dr. Michio Kaku, a physics professor at City College New York, confirmed the existence and use of ENMOD technologies, while casually downgrading their significance and disregarding their strategic and military applications (see video below):
The Involvement of the CIA in Climate Change Technologies
Back in July 2013, MSN news reported that the CIA was involved in helping to fund a project by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) focusing on geo-engineering and climate manipulation. The report not only acknowledged these technologies, it confirmed that US intelligence has been routinely involved in addressing the issue of climatic manipulation:
The CIA is helping fund the research because the NAS also plans to evaluate “the national security concerns (that could be) related to geoengineering technologies being deployed somewhere in the world,” Kearney said.
In an emailed statement, Christopher White, a spokesman for the CIA’s office of public affairs, told MSN, “On a subject like climate change, the agency works with scientists to better understand the phenomenon and its implications on national security.”
Although the CIA and the NAS are tight-lipped about what these concerns might be,one researcher notes that geoengineering has the potential to deliberately disrupt the weather for terrorist or military goals.
John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based firm that specializes in addressing emerging security concerns, says that worries about the potential impact of geoengineering aren’t as paramount as the potential security issues that could arise if the United States doesn’t use the technology.
“A failure to engage in geoengineering could impact the political stability of other countries, and that could lead to trouble for the U.S.,” he said.
The NAS project is supported by the U.S. intelligence community, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Energy.
“historical examples of related technologies (e.g., cloud seeding and other weather modification) for lessons that might be learned about societal reactions, examine what international agreements exist which may be relevant to the experimental testing or deployment of geoengineering technologies, and briefly explore potential societal and ethical considerations related to geoengineering. This study is intended to provide a careful, clear scientific foundation that informs ethical, legal, and political discussions surrounding geoengineering. (Seehttp://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/projectview.aspx?key=49540)
While geoengineering and weather warfare are nothing new, they are rarely the object of media attention. Weather-modification for military use has been acknowledged by the US Air Force indocument AF 2025 Final Report:
‘[ENMOD] offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary’, [including] the triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes… The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.”
In the course of the 1990s, the HAARP program was developed. The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) based in Gokona, Alaska, has been in existence since 1992. [It was closed down in 2013] It is part of a new generation of sophisticated weaponry under the US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Operated by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate, HAARP constitutes a system of powerful antennas capable of creating “controlled local modifications of the ionosphere” [upper layer of the atmosphere]
In a 1990s CBC TV report, weather modification for military acknowledged that HAARP had the ability of triggering typhoons, earthquakes, floods and droughts:
Directed energy is such a powerful technology it could be used to heat the ionosphere to turn weather into a weapon of war. Imagine using a flood to destroy a city or tornadoes to decimate an approaching army in the desert. The military has spent a huge amount of time on weather modification as a concept for battle environments. If an electromagnetic pulse went off over a city, basically all the electronic things in your home would wink and go out, and they would be permanently destroyed.”
To view CBS documentary, video below:
It's All One Justice: Rev. Billy and the Golden Frogs Vs. JP Morgan
While marauding banksters who trashed the global economy and continue trashing the environment have yet to see a day in jail, climate change activist Reverend Billy faces a year in jail for a recent "extinction resurrection" performance by his Church of Stop Shopping Choir, dressed as now-extinct golden frogs, at a NYC branch of JP Morgan Chase - the world's top investor in fossil fuel projects that have led to the extinction of scores of other species. For their 15-minute, frog-costumed performance of "We Surround You," representing all threatened species, the City charged the choir director and the frequently arrested Reverend, aka Bill Talen, with riot, menacing and disorderly conduct. In an astute interview with Grist, Talen says he gets the threat they pose - "We’re in dicey territory here because JP Morgan Chase is basically the government of New York. Jamie Dimon is a rock star....It's a very sensitive thing for a corporation to have activists come in. We're more dramatic than they are and we're stopping everything. Some of the toads are up on the desks dancing. We're singing. I'm preaching." - which is also why he feels he needs to keep at it before big banks and heavy industry "drain all life from the planet." There's a petition to get him off.
"In America we’ve never changed without casualties....The Earth leads, we follow."
Why TEPCO Is Risking the Removal of Fukushima Fuel Rods. The Dangers of Uncontrolled Global Nuclear Radiation
The urgency attached to this particular site, as compared with reactors damaged in meltdowns, arises from several factors:
- over 400 tons of nuclear material in the pool could reignite
- the fire-damaged tank is tilting badly and may topple over sooner than later
- collapse of the structure could trigger a chain reaction and nuclear blast, and
- consequent radioactive releases would heavily contaminate much of the world.
The potential for disaster at the Unit 4 SFP is probably of a higher magnitude than suspected due to the presence of fresh fuel rods, which were delivered during the technical upgrade of Reactor 4 under completion at the time of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The details of that reactor overhaul by GE and Hitachi have yet to be disclosed by TEPCO and the Economy Ministry and continue to be treated as a national-security matter. Here, the few clues from whistleblowers will be pieced together to decipher the nature of the clandestine activity at Fukushima No.1.
Accidents happen
The delicate rod-removal procedure requires the lowering of a steel cylinder, called a transfer cask, into a corner of the pool and then using the crane to lift the 300-kilogram fuel assemblies (4..5-meter-tall bundle of fuel rods held inside a metal cage) one at a time from the vertical array of rods up and then down into the cask. The container can hold 22 assemblies for transfer to a temporary cooling unit built next to Reactor 4 before these are moved to a storage building.(1)
Lifting the 1,533 fuel bundles out of the pool is fraught with danger. If an assembly breaks away and falls, the impact could shatter other rods below, triggering an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. Compounding the threat, many rods are not intact but were fragmented into loose shards by a collapsing crane. In addition, many of the rods likely lost their protective cladding during the two fires that engulfed the spent-fuel pool on March 14 and 15, 2011.
The urgency of this transfer operation is prompted by the warping of the supporting steel frame by the twin fires that followed the March 11 quake. The pool is also tilting. If the unbalanced structure topples, the collapse would trigger nuclear reactions. A cascade of neutrons could then ignite the nearby common fuel pool for Reactors 1 through 6. The common pool contains 6,735 used assemblies.(2)
The Reactor 4 spent fuel pool contains an estimated 400 tons of uranium and plutonium oxide, compared with just 6.2 kilograms of plutonium inside Fat Man, the hydrogen bomb that obliterated Nagasaki in 1945. (While predictions are bandied about by experts and bloggers, there exists no reliable method for calculating the potential sum or flow rate of radiation releases, measured in becquerel or sievert units, after an accident. The tonnage involved, however, indicates only that a large-scale event is likely and a cataclysm cannot be ruled out.)
More than 1,700 tons of nuclear materials are reported to be on site inside Fukushima No.1 plant. (My investigative visits into the exclusion zone indicate the existence of undocumented and illegal large-scale storage sites in the Fukushima nuclear complex of undetermined tonnage.) By comparison Chernobyl ’s reactors contained 180 tons of fuel not all of which melted down.
Despite the looming threat to residents in Fukushima , surrounding provinces and the capital Tokyo , the office of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe along with TEPCO hews to the tradition of risk denial and blackout of vital information. No contingency plan has been issued to Fukushima residents or to the municipalities of the Tohoku and Kanto region in event of a nuclear disaster during the SFP clearance effort. A concurrent drive to impose a draconian law against whistleblowers on grounds of national security is reinforcing the cover-up of data and testimony related to nuclear power plants, including the Fukushima complex.
Mystery of MOX super-fuel
A Mainichi Shimbun editorial mentions in passing that the Reactor 4 pool contains 202 fresh fuel assemblies.(3) The presence of new fuel rods was confirmed in the TEPCO press release, which described the first assembly lifted into the transfer cask as an “un-irradiated fuel rod.” Why were new rods being stored inside a spent-fuel pool, which is designed to hold expended rods? What threat of criticality do these fresh rods pose if the steel frame collapses or if crane operators drop one by accident onto other assemblies, as opposed to a spent rod?
Against the official silence and disinformation, a few whistleblowers have come forward with clues to answer these questions. Former GE nuclear worker Kei Sugaoka disclosed in a video interview that a joint team from Hitachi and General Electric was inside Reactor 4 at the time of the March 11, 2011 earthquake. By that fateful afternoon, the GE contractors were finishing the job of installing a new shroud, the heat-resistant metal shield lining the reactor interior.(4)
TEPCO inadvertently admitted to the presence of foreign contractors at Fukushima No.1 up until March 12, 2012, when the management ordered their evacuation in event of a massive explosion during the rapid meltdown of Reactor 2. So far, leaks indicate the presence of the GE team and of a Israeli nuclear security team with Magna BSP, a company based in Dimona.(5)
Another break came in April 2012, when a Japanese humor magazine published a brief interview of a Fukushima worker who disclosed that radioactive pieces of a broken shroud were left inside a device-storage pool at rooftop level behind the Reactor 4 spent-fuel pool.(6) This undoubtedly is the used shroud removed by the GE-H workers in February-March 2011.
A curious point here is that the previous shroud had been in use for only 15 months. Why would TEPCO and the Japanese government expend an enormous sum on a new lining when the existing one was still good for many years of service?
Obviously, the installation of a new shroud was not a mere replacement of a worn predecessor. It was an upgrade. The refit of Reactor 4 was, therefore, similar to the 2010 conversion of Reactor 3 to pluthermal or MOX fuel. The same model of GE Mark 1 reactor was being revamped to burn MOX fuel (mixed oxide of uranium and plutonium).
The un-irradiated rods inside the Unit 4 spent-fuel pool are, in all probability, made of a new type of MOX fuel containing highly enriched plutonium. If the frame collapses, triggering fire or explosion inside the spent-fuel pool, the plutonium would pulse powerful neutron bursts that may well possibly ignite distant nuclear power plants, starting with the Fukushima No.2 plant, 10 kilometers to the south.
The scenario of a serial chain reaction blasting apart nuclear plants along the Pacific Coast, is what compelled Naoto Kan, prime minister at the time of the 311 disaster, to contemplate the mass evacuation of 50 million residents (a third of the national population) from the Tohoku region and the Greater Tokyo metropolitan region to distant points southwest.(7) Evacuation would be impeded by the scale and intensity of multiple reactor explosions, which would shut down all transport systems, telecommunications and trap most residents. Tens of millions would die horribly in numbers topping all disasters of history combined.
Fires last time
The rod-transfer operation from Unit 4 is scheduled for completion by the end of 2014. That estimate is optimistic since it does not take into account the obstruction posed by fragments of shattered fuel rods that were overheated in the two fires that swept through Unit 4 spent-fuel pool on March 13 and 15, 2011, according to NHK television news.(8) Another factor for uncertainty is the impact of the explosion that rocked the roofline of the reactor building.
Basing its analysis on corporate information releases thus far, the Simply Info website states:
“TEPCO has changed their story on Unit 4 multiple times but eventually admitted to a very obvious explosion occurring at Unit 4 (on March 15). No video of Unit 4 exploding exists to date and it is assumed the explosion took place before dawn. One of TEPCO’s later admissions regarding unit 4 is that they think hydrogen leaked into unit 4 from unit 3 via the venting pipes and a faulty valve. No reason was given as to why unit 4 did not then ignite when Unit 3 exploded.”(9)
Soon after the Reactor 3 blast, an explosion occurred on the roofline of Reactor 4, blowing two 8-meter-wide holes through the outer wall. Although tattered, the spent-fuel pool survived the nearby explosion along with the device-storage pool containing the shroud. Photos of the building show holes and damage to a large section of walls and roof slabs on the northeast side of the upper structure (opposite the spent-fuel pool. Hydrogen gas, despite its high combustive energy per kilogram, lacks sufficient density to inflict such damage to reinforced concrete, as would a carbon-bonded gas like acetylene. A logical deduction then is that a cask of new fuel rods left on the roof during the GE-H refit was ignited by neutrons emitted from the SPF fire.
As for the spent-fuel pool, the first blaze broke out on March 14 and died down after several hours. On the following day, the pool reignited and had to be extinguished by firefighters. The nagging question is why the raging fires burned so long, since much of the hydrogen was dissolved in the remaining water at the bottom of the pool or would have burned off within a few seconds. While TEPCO conjectured that hydrogen gas pumped from Reactor 3 to 4, that scenario is a long stretch since most of the volatile gas would dissipated before arrival or ignited along the way.
An alternative possibility is of a tritium-plutonium reaction creating gas plasma inside the spent fuel pool. The condition of the cladding on the rods, which would have been melted by plasma, can indicate the heat source during those two fires. None dare mention are tritium-plutonium inter-reaction because that is the formula for a thermonuclear bomb, that is, the H-bomb. MOX fuel does have the potential to generate sufficient tritium for a thermonuclear, and that is what so rattled Naoto Kan by March 12, 2011.
A Puzzled Civil Engineer
In July 2012, inside the exclusion zone about 14 kilometers south of Fukushima No.1 plant, I had a discussion with a manager with a major construction contractor, whose large team was working at the damaged nuclear facilities. The civil engineer said that the Reactor 4 building was of serious concern because the structure was split, with the halves leaning onto each other. He added that the tilt indicates “structural damage” to the ferroconcrete foundation. Even a 9.0 earthquake could not cleave the strong footing, he stressed.
When asked about what then could crack the foundation, the manager responded: “I am a civil engineer, not a nuclear expert.” Nudged a bit more, he implied that a meltdown of nuclear fuel may have seared through the concrete. The intense heat can reconvert concrete into loose hydrated lime powder and sand, while cutting through rebar steel like a hot knife through butter.
The upgrade of the Reactor 4 shroud may well have involved the test-fitting of some MOX rods, which abandoned on the floor next to the reactor when the tsunami reached shore. In other words, in early March 2011 crane operators completely filled space inside the spent-fuel pool with new MOX rods and then simply left casks of assemblies on the roof and lowered more into the basement. That is the simplest explanation for the damage to the structural integrity of the reactor building. GE is not about to disclose its role in this disaster.
Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times Weekly in Tokyo, conducts independent radiation measurements and dispenses herbal therapy to local residents on his 10 journeys since May 2011 into the 20-kilometer Fukushima exclusion zone.
Notes
- Tokyo Electric Power Company, press release, 18 November 2013
- Former Ambassador Mitsuhei Murata, quoted by the Asahi Shimbun, “Doomsday scenarios spread about No.4 Reactor at Fukushima plant” 10 May 2012.
- The Mainichi Shimbun, editorial “TEPCO must put safety above all else in Fukushima atomic fuel removal project.”
- “GE Nuclear Plant Inspector/Whistleblower Kei Sugaoko Speaks” youtube.com, 40 minutes
- Israeli surveillance at Fukushima plant, Sarah Press, Israel21c, March 20, 2011http://israel21c.org/news/israeli-surveillance-at-fukushima-plant/
- Datsutte-miru magazine, Interview of a Fukushima worker by Oshidori Mako, April 15, 2012.
- This writer attended the June 2013 seminar at the San Diego Board of Supervisors and issuedthe most detailed news report on Naoto Kan’s remarks, “Japan’s leader during Fukushima meltdown opposes nuclear power”, posted at http://rense.com/general96/jpleader.html
- NHK World news broadcast, 15 March 2011, reported by Platts ( Sydney )
- SimplyInfo, “Reactor 4”, www.fukuleaks.org
The global struggle for peasants seeds : a struggle for our future
Peasant seeds, and seed diversity are at the root of food sovereingty
As countless farmers, farmworkers, urban growers, and consumers across the globe celebrated the International Day of Action for Food Sovereignty in October, an overwhelming number are celebrating seeds as pilar for food sovereignty. Afterall, according to ETC Group, 80-90% of seeds are sourced outside of commercial markets, that is to say through peasant seed systems, and farm-saved seeds. In the new publication, Our Seeds Our Future La Via Campesina chronicles ten experiences of peasant seed selection, saving, improvement, and re-use. These experiences in recovering and reproducing knowledge to improve peasant agricultural food production are mirrored by multitudes more in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.
The experiences spotlighted in the publication are examples of true food sovereingty in action, in contrast to monoculture and industrial farming methods that, as stated in a recent UNCTAD report, are not providing sufficient affordable food where needed while causing mounting environmental damage.
This marks a critical moment for the future of the planet’s seed diversity. While industry pursues legal and instutional battles to further control and monopolize global seed supplies, the evidence is growing in support of diversified peasant seeds and agroecology as fundamental to producing healthy food while mitigating environmental and climate impacts.
Seed Industry seeks to patent and monopolize the planet’s seed diversity
Despite recent political stalemates that shut down the U.S. Government for almost two weeks, the Obama administration is quietly pushing forward with trade deals across the globe. Many of these trade agreements include specific conditions regarding seeds and intellectual property rights which pose a direct threat to people’s seed and food sovereingty. At the same time the government paralysis has allowed farmer and consumer advocates more time to push for the suspension of language previously slipped into the continuing resolution on the budget that would have protected seed industry corporations from US Departement of Agriculture review and any legal action attepmted against them. In a short-term victory, advocates were able to obtain removal of the so-called Monsanto Protection Act in the United States.
As trade negotiations advance, Colombian farmers have been mobilizing in Bogotá since August in opposition to the renweal of the U.S.- Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) which has displaced thousands of small-scale farmers. In partial response to the protests, Resolution 9.70 - a precondition of the 2010 FTA - has been suspended for a period of two years. This law criminalized peasant seed saving, selecting and exchanging, giving the state the right to destroy non-compliant seeds. The resolution gave preferential market access to U.S. and European seed companies, by requiring farmers to use certain industrial seeds to qualify for government credit and support programs. In 2011, the Colombian government confiscated and destroyed over 70 tons of peasant rice seed.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, where a 10-year moratorium on GMO corn was lifted in 2009, a federal judge recently ordered temporary suspention of granting any further permissions for genetically modified (GMO) corn planting and commercialization while potential health and environmental impacts are assessed. However, previously permitted GMO crop experimentations will continue despite public protest and farmer-led hunger strikes. The battle over seeds is being fought on legal turf in a similar fashion across the globe, where so-called “Monsanto Laws” are proposing either to lift previously instated GMO and terminator bans (i.e. Brazil), or to override constitutional safeguards against GMO seeds and industry-led seed certification processes (i.e. Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, India , Canada…). Such attemtps in the U.S. and Brazil have been stalled as a result of public opposition, but the proposals remain on the table for eventual decisions. In Brazil’s case, social movements rallied international support in another temporary victory to remove a bill from consideration, which would have lifted the long-time ban on terminator seeds.
Such seed laws being drafted around the world are an application of the UPOV911 Convention, which in the practice has used the legal framework of property rigths including “protection” of genetic material to the service of privatization and monopolization of seed and plant varieties. UPOV91 has also been applied through certification and registration laws which criminalize non-commercial seeds. This in effect give companies sole rights over genetic material, failing to recognize farmers’ rights to save, exchange, and produce seeds. Another element of the UPOV91 is the push toward seed ‘uniformity’ through registration and certification requirements, as opposed to promoting seed diversity.
In Africa, as GRAIN reports, 80% of all seeds are still peasant seeds. But the impetus for a new Green Revolution using hybrid and GMO seeds as an anchor is gaining ground through an attempt to harmonize seed trade regulations throughout the continent. The road for seed industrialization in Africa was paved by CGIAR2 using public funds to finance the green revolution in Africa. While the Green Revolution has clearly failed to abate hunger in Africa, the privately funded Alliance of a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)3 continues to push for industrial seed, pesticide and fertilizer use as the basis for agricultural production.
Registration laws recently approved in September 2013 in the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) will create a mandatory seed registration system, allowing marketing of private sector seeds while outlawing the sale of peasant varieties. Like registration systems already implemented in Europe, and those being pushed in Latin America, seeds must be considered “uniform, stable, and genetically distinct” to qualify and be traded or sold.
In addition, African regional institutions such as the African Regional Intellectual Property Office (ARIPO) and the South African Development Community (SADC) have also developed draft intellectual property frameworks that only grant proprietary rights to the private sector varieties, while criminalizing peasants who save, re-use, and exchange seeds. African peasant organizations as well as the African Food Sovereignty Alliance have denounced these frameworks as mechanisms to facilitate the corporate control of African seeds and undermine seed sovereignty. In general, the green revolution model of agricultural production makes farmers dependent on expensive seed, pesticide and fertilizer inputs which are biologically unsustainable for the soil. Recent reports claim that crop yields based on this model have already reached their maximum limit of output, and will continue to decrease on a scale of diminishing returns4.
Peasant seed systems at the root of food sovereignty and sustainability
Meanwhile, however, the resilience of agriculture based on peasant seed saving coupled with agroecology is evidenced more and more frequently. As documented in the case of Mozambique, and others highlighted in Our Seeds Our Future, sustainable peasant agricultural practices, in lieu of dependence on expensive commercial seeds for commodity crops, is ensuring food sovereignty for peasants across Africa and the globe. Trainings and exchanges between farmers described throughout the publication strengthen and multiply these experiences. In just one season of planting and harvesting, over 200 Mozambique farmers participated in a learning exchange program between local seed savers and peasant seed savers from Brazil. Also this year, young farmers in the Indian province of Bihar made headlines for breaking world records in rice and potato yield per/hectare without using pesticides or GMOs hosted a delegation of international farmers to share techniques and lessons learned.
The agricultural universities and government authorities in India were shocked and even questioned the results coming out of Bihar. But peasants around the world took it as another sign of changing tides. “Farmers have repeatedly proved that we have better solutions and methods for farming than can come from purchasing seed and chemical inputs from corporations. Peasant seeds are at the root of food sovereignty; they produce healthier food, sustainably,” said Via Campesina coordinator Elizabeth Mpofu, of Zimsoff, Zimbabwe. “Also, in the face of climate change, diverse seeds systems are what we need to have resilient agriculture, but most of all, peasant seeds are part of a system of production which promotes justice instead of inequality and hunger.” In Mpofu’s organization, over 10,000 members have organized in cooperatives which are producing food crops free of pesticides and GMOs. They recently hosted a continental seed seminar in November 2013, where peasant representatives from East, South Central, and Western Africa analyzed the challenges peasants face as a result of new seed laws, as well as next steps to strengthening peasant seed systems in Africa.
Concrete work to strengthen peasant seed systems globally is already underway; a few of which are documented in this LVC publication. The aforementioned experience in Mozambique, being carried out by the National Farmers Union of Mozambique (UNAC) and the Small Producers Movement (MPA) of Brazil, has led to the establishment of eleven (and counting) community farms dedicated to peasant seed recovery, production and exchange of knowledge. The seeds are produced to sufficient scale to allow access for the area farmers to plant in their own fields.
The Korean Peasant Women Association undertook a two-year long process to inventory and rediscover native seeds in North and South Korea, through a process of seed exchange and field investigations. They now have two 1,000 square meter plots of land dedicated solely to the production of native seeds. In addition, they have established a decentralized network of families across the country who are individually responsible for the protection of specific seeds recovered both domestically and within the broader region of South and South East Asia.
In Mexico, amidst an onslaught of GMO and hybrid corn dumping from the United States and South Africa, the Purépecha indigenous peoples of the state of Michoacán, declared a GMO-free zone in the community of San Francisco Pichátaro. Since 2004, they have been strengthening farmer knowledge within their community and to five additional communities to use native maize varieties, liberating themselves from dependence on contaminated varieties. Since 2005 when the initial 10-hectare farm for native maize cultivation was established, the community has recovered 6 native corn varieties in the San Francisco community alone. They have also established a system for participatory seed-breeding, and marketing of organic produce for local consumption.
In northern countries farmers are being charged royalties or even sued for the use of any industry-patented genetic material (i.e. the famous case of Percy Schmeiser). This occurs even if the seeds were never obtained from any patent holder, or if farmers fields are involuntarily contaminated by GMO seeds. However, many farmers are finding ways to protect their rights; such as in the case of the AbL (Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft) peasant organization in Germany, whose original 1600 members were sued for refusing to register and report information demanded by the seed industry breeders. In 2001 the highest German court ruled in favor of the farmers. The organization has now grown to 40,000 farmers who, in unity, are able to protect farmers rights to on-farm seed saving and production without sharing the information with private seed companies or paying royalties for what they insist should be public knowledge.
In the marked conflict of interest between corporate concentration of seeds, and a biodiverse, peasant seed-based agriculture, two paradigms for agricultural development diverge. The continued corporate monopolization of seeds is essential to an industrial model of agriculture, which as ETC Group reports, uses 70% of the world’s agricultural resources to produce 30% of the world’s food, while creating more than of half of global greenhouse gas omissions. On the other hand, peasant agriculture, based on vibrant and diverse peasant seed systems, uses only 30% of our agricultural resources while producing 70% of the world’s food.
At a recent conference on food sovereignty at Yale University, discussion of the role of peasants in combatting global hunger emerged repeatedly. Could they produce enough, without GMOs? Paul Nicholson, a farmer from the Basque country answered: “the question is no longer whether we can feed the world. We have answered that question. We are doing that even in as we are undermined by an industry-driven model of production. So why do we still have hunger? Hunger is a social problem we must decide to resolve, and we must start by choosing peasant seeds as the basis for food sovereignty.”
Indeed, the cases highlighted in Our Seeds, Our Future offer a plentitude of lessons learned. Each experience tells us that farmers are not only safeguarding traditional knowledge, but they are creating new knowledge and new techniques for improving seeds and agroecological production. They are creating solutions to their own production challenges; avoiding dependence on purchased inputs, combatting soil erosion and actually improving yields by using peasant seeds. In so doing, peasants ensure their own livelihoods while also tackling the global challenges which the Green Revolution and the so-called “Green Economy” have yet to impact with the use of millions in investments - especially the hunger and climate crises. These experiences also teach us that while the current corporate-driven agenda is to diminish and monopolize the planet’s seed diversity, increased seed diversity is absolutely necessary to strengthening sustainable agricultural systems and food sovereignty. In this way, we also see in this small collection of “good practices” a distinct commonality which extends beyond the breadth of the publication, to many other peasant organizations taking action to reclaim seed sovereignty.
Find out more! :
Read the new publication Our Seeds Our Future
1 “UPOV” is the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. “UPOV91” is the 1991 revision of the UPOV Convention originally adopted in Paris in 1961.3 See: http://www.agra.org
4 Kemp, Benedict, 2003. Cited in: Less Hunger through More Ecology http://www.ke.boell.org/downloads/Less_Hunger_through_mroe_ecology.pdf. Additional reports which document the impacts of genetic engineering and pesticides on soil erosion and the environment are cited in the IAASTD Report, 2009.
La Via Campesina
Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers. We are an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic, or other type of affiliation. Born in 1993, La Via Campesina now gathers about 183 organisations in 88 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
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Email: viacam...@viacampesina.org
Iran Deal in Geneva: Hold the Cheers
A previous article asked if it matters? Longstanding hardline US/Israeli policy won’t change.
Sanctions Iran most wants removed remain in place. Stiff new ones may follow later on. For now they’re postponed.
America is duplicitous. It’s deals aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Will this one be different? Don’t bet on it. Interpretations differ on what was agreed on. More on that below.
Obama is no peacemaker. He’s waging multiple direct and proxy wars. He’s done so from day one in office. He broke every major promise made. That’s key.
He shows no signs of changing policy. He hasn’t throughout his tenure. He remains hardline on Iran. His softer rhetoric reflects deception. Tehran got too little in exchange for major concessions.
A six month interim deal was agreed on. It’s temporary, modest and reversible. It can be changed, rescinded or ignored if Washington wishes.
Iran has no guarantees. It has legitimate demands. It wants its sovereign rights respected.
It wants normalized relations. It wants US/Israeli war options dropped. It wants its membership in the world body of nations fully recognized.
On November 20, talks began. They continued into day five. They concluded pre-dawn on Sunday. A UN Geneva Palace of Nations signing ceremony followed.
- Conflicting reports suggest possible rocky times ahead. Reuters headlined “Iran, six world powers clinch breakthrough nuclear deal.”
It suggested “emerging rapprochement ending a dangerous standoff” in exchange for “limited sanctions relief.”
The New York Times headlined “Accord Reached With Iran to Halt Nuclear Program.” It gave readers the wrong impression.
It partly misreported. It’s typical NYT. It said the agreement “temporarily freezes Iran’s nuclear program.”
It “halt(s) much of (it) and rolls some elements back.” Readers had to get well into the article for details. Most don’t get beyond the first few paragraphs. Initial impressions stick. What follows matters less.
The Washington Post headlined “Iran, world powers reach historic nuclear deal,” saying:
It “freezes key parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for temporary relief on some economic sanctions Iran (is required) to halt or scale back parts of its nuclear infrastructure.”
The Wall Street Journal headlined “Major Powers Reach Deal With Iran to Freeze Nuclear Program. (It) ensure(s) the Islamist government doesn’t rush to develop atomic weapons.”
Senator Mark Kirk (R. IL) is one of many sharp congressional Iranian critics. The Journal quoted him saying:
“This deal appears to provide the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism with billions of dollars in exchange for cometic concessions.”
John Kerry lied to reporters, saying:
“This first step (agreed on) does not say Iran has the right of enrichment, no matter what interpretative comments are made.”
False! Agreement provisions are discussed below. Enrichment up to 5% is permitted. Kerry knows it. So can everyone reading the document.
On November 20, Senators Bob Casey (D. PA), Charles Schumer (D. NY), Lindsey Graham (R. SC), John McCain (R. AR), and Susan Collins (R. ME) wrote John Kerry. In part they said:
“We feel strongly that any easing of sanctions along the lines that the P5+1 is reportedly considering should require Iran to roll back its nuclear program more significantly than now envisioned.”
“It is our belief that any interim agreement with the Iranians should bring us closer to our ultimate goal which is Iran without a nuclear weapons capability.”
It should “prevent Tehran from possessing any enrichment or reprocessing capability.”
“(W)e are concerned that the interim agreement would require us to make significant concessions before we see Iran demonstrably commit to moving away from developing a nuclear weapons capability.”
“(W)e must be ever mindful of with whom we are negotiating. Iran has been the largest state sponsor of terrorism for over thirty years; its leaders routinely call for the destruction of Israel; and it arms and finances terrorist groups around the globe.”
Many other Republican and Democrat House and Senate members express similar sentiments. Anti-Iranian hostility is virulent. It’s longstanding. Geneva changes nothing.
Netanyahu’s office called the deal “a bad agreement. It gives Iran exactly what it wants: both substantial easing of sanctions and preservation of the most substantial parts of its nuclear program.”
Separately, Netanyahu told his cabinet ministers the deal is a “historic mistake. Israel is not obligated by this agreement.”
“I want to make clear we will not allow Iran to obtain military nuclear capability.”
“Today the world became a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world made a significant step in obtaining the most dangerous weapons in the world.”
Other Israeli hardliners expressed similar comments. Deputy Knesset speaker, Moshe Feiglin, compared Geneva to Munich 1938.
“Any rational person understands that we are in the midst of a process leads to a nuclear-armed Iran,” he claimed.
Things are “much worse than (what) led to the Yom Kippur War,” he added.
Israel is the Middle East’s sole nuclear power. It maintains a formidable arsenal. It has long-range sophisticated delivery systems. It represents the region’s only major threat. Western media entirely ignore it.
Avigdor Lieberman is Israel’s defrocked/reinstated foreign minister. He represents the extreme far right of Netanyahu’s coalition government.
He’s an embarrassment too great to ignore. He’s a thorn in the side of peace and stability.
He warned about letting Iran’s nuclear program continue. It’ll lead to a regional nuclear arms race, he claimed.
It’ll be on a scale “that even the most nightmarish Hollywood horror movie could not come close to depicting.”
“We will know how to handle the Iranian threat, even if we stand alone,” he stressed.
“The threat is not just directed at us. The consequences (will be felt) across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, and the price of oil and gas. (They’ll) be catastrophic for the whole world.”
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon was just as hardline, saying:
“We must not be patient and allow Iran to become a nuclear state. One way or another, Iran’s military nuclear program must be stopped.”
“We must continue with harsh sanctions on the diplomatic front, while presenting a credible military threat.”
“We stand before a bad deal after which Iran will still be allowed to preserve its enrichment capabilities and operate without pressure.”
“A strengthened Iran is a strengthened Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. These are groups that present a threat to the West and to us.”
Iranian reports were positive. Press TV headlined “Tehran, world powers reach nuclear deal: Iran FM.” The Tehran Times headlined “Tehran, world powers reach nuclear deal.”
Iran’s Fars News Agency headlined “FM: Iran to Continue Nuclear Activities.” It quoted Foreign Minister Javad Zarif saying:
Iran’s “program has been recognized and the Iranian people’s right to use the peaceful nuclear technology based on the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and as an inalienable right has been recognized and countries are necessitated not to create any obstacle on its way.”
“The (nuclear) program will continue and all the sanctions and violations against the Iranian nation under the pretext of the nuclear program will be removed gradually.”
The deal represents a first-step effort toward “the full removal of all UN Security Council, unilateral and multilateral sanctions, while the country’s enrichment program will be maintained.”
“Production of 5-percent-enriched uranium will continue in the country similar to the past.”
“None of the enrichment centers will be closed and Fordo and Natanz will continue their work and the Arak heavy water program will continue in its present form and no material (enriched uranium stockpiles) will be taken out of the country and all the enriched materials will remain inside the country.”
“The current sanctions will move towards decrease. No (new) sanctions will be imposed and Iran’s financial resources will return.”
Zarif called the deal “a great success.” His faith remains to be tested. He understands the challenges Iran face. He called what was agreed on “an action plan in four pages.”
“If we see any breach occurs in the commitments of the other side, and I hope that it will not happen, there will be a possibility for reversing (the actions).”
“We are not in such a status to accept implementing the agreement unilaterally, if the other side doesn’t comply with its undertakings.”
“With open eyes and by fully protecting the people’s rights, if, God forbid, we come to this conclusion that the other side has misused the created opportunity, we will surely have other choices.”
Fars News published the full text of the deal. It’s provisions are as follows:
- its duration runs six months; everything agreed on below remains in place for that period;
- it’s renewable by mutual consent;
- Iran retains half of its 20% enriched uranium “as working stock of 20% oxide for fabrication of fuel for the TRR (Tehran Research Reactor);”
- the remainder will be diluted “to no more than 5%;”
- for the next six months, Iran will restrict enrichment to 5%;
- it “will not make any further advances of its activities at (its) Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant 1, Fordow2, or the Arak reactor 3;”
- no new enrichment locations will be used;
- “Iran will continue its safeguarded R&D practices, including its current R&D practices; (they’re) not designed for accumulation of the enriched uranium;”
- reprocessing or construction of a facility for that purpose is prohibited;
- “enhanced monitoring” is agreed on;
- IAEA-supplied information will include “Iran’s plans for nuclear facilities, a description of each building on each nuclear site, a description of the scale of operations for each location engaged in specified nuclear activities, information on uranium mines and mills, and information on source material;”
- Iran will supply this information within three months;
- it’ll provide IAEA with an updated DIQ (Design Inventory Questionnaire) on Arak’s reactor;
- IAEA steps were agreed on regarding the Safeguards Approach for Arak’s reactor;
- “daily IAEA inspector access when inspectors are not present for the purpose of Design Information Verification, Interim Inventory Verification, Physical Inventory Verification, and unannounced inspections, for the purpose of access to offline surveillance records, at Fordow and Natanz;”
- “IAEA inspector managed access to centrifuge assembly workshops4; centrifuge rotor production workshops and storage facilities; and uranium mines and mills;”
- Iran won’t “feed UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) into the centrifuges installed but not enriching uranium;”
- it won’t install additional centrifuges;
- it will replace existing ones with others “of the same type;”
- no further Fordow enrichment “over 5% at 4 cascades (and no) increase(d) enrichment capacity; (no) feed (of) UF6 into the other 12 cascades (to) remain inoperative; no interconnections between cascades;”
- Iran won’t “commission (Arak) or transfer fuel or heavy water to the reactor site, and will not test additional fuel or produce more fuel for the reactor or install remaining components;” and
- centrifuge production will only replace “damaged machines.”
P5+1 countries agreed to the following:
- cease efforts to further reduce Iranian crude oil sales;
- let Iranian customers continue buying their current amounts;
- repatriate “an agreed amount of revenue held abroad;” it’s believed to be no more than $7 billion; perhaps it’s less;
- suspend US/EU insurance and transportation services sanctions;
- suspend US/EU sanctions on Iranian petrochemical exports, associated services related to them, gold and precious metals, as well as others on associated services, and Iran’s auto industry plus associated services related to it;
- “license the supply and installation in Iran of spare parts for safety of flight for Iranian civil aviation and associated services;”
- “license safety related inspections and repairs in Iran as well as associated services;”
- no new US, EU or Security Council nuclear related sanctions;
- “establish a financial channel to facilitate humanitarian trade for Iran’s domestic needs using Iranian oil revenues held abroad;”
- included are transactions involving food, agricultural products, medicines, medical devices and supplies, as well as medical expenses incurred abroad;
- “specified foreign banks and non-designated Iranian” ones “to be defined” will be involved when the channel is established;
- it’ll enable Iran to pay its UN obligations, as well as tuition for Iranian students studying abroad “up to an agreed amount;”
- EU authorized transactions thresholds will increase “for non-sanctioned trade to an agreed amount;”
- ” ‘sanctions on associated services’ means any service, such as insurance, transportation, or financial, subject to the underlying US or EU sanctions applicable, insofar as each service is related to the underlying sanction and required to facilitate the desired transactions;”
- “these services could involve any non-designated Iranian entities;”
- final step efforts toward a “comprehensive solution” to be implemented “no more than one year after agreement on the above provisions;”
- it’ll have “a specified long-term duration;”
- it’ll reflect adhering to NPT provisions and IAEA Safeguard Agreements;
- it aims to “comprehensively lift UN Security Council, multilateral and national nuclear-related sanctions, including steps on access in areas of trade, technology, finance, and energy, on a schedule to be agreed upon;”
- it’ll involve a “mutually defined enrichment programme with mutually agreed parameters consistent with practical needs, with agreed limits on scope and level of enrichment activities, capacity, where it is carried out, and stocks of enriched uranium, for a period to be agreed upon;”
- it’ll fully resolve concerns about Arak;
- it’ll mandate “no reprocessing or construction of a facility capable of” doing so;
- “following successful implementation of the final step of the comprehensive solution for its full duration, the Iranian nuclear programme will be treated in the same manner as that of any non-nuclear weapon state party to the NPT;” and
- it’s mutually agreed that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”
Sunday’s agreement leaves important issues unresolved. Key is longstanding US/Israeli hostility.
Iran won’t benefit unless its legitimate rights are respected. They haven’t been for 34 years. Will this time be different?
Will longstanding US imperial policy change? Will Israel’s position soften despite its rhetoric? Will its lobby? Will France, Britain and Germany? Will Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council states?
Believing it requires a giant leap of faith. It’s believing America negotiates fairly. It’s believing it wants peace in our time.
It’s believing Obama intends ending decades of US hostility. It’s believing what won’t happen going forward.
Longstanding US policy remains unchanged. It’s hardline. It’s unrelenting. It wants unchallenged global dominance. It wants pro-Western puppet regimes replacing independent ones.
It’s the oil, stupid. It’s the gas. Iran is rich in both. Washington covets control. It continues going all out to get it. Geneva didn’t change things.
Professor Abbas Edalat founded the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII). He commented on Geneva, saying:
“Clearly, it would take a long time for the US to gain the trust of Iranian people, and this can only be achieved by recognizing Iran’s rights for a civilian nuclear program including home enrichment of uranium for energy production.”
“Only when the US treats Iran with respect as a sovereign nation, the process of reconciliation and looking forward to mutual cooperation and collaboration in many areas of joint interests can begin.”
'Lack of Trust': Karzai Balks at US Security Agreement
Loya Jirga ends in surprise move by Afghan president who says agreement will not be signed without further assurances
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has surprised many by refusing to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement between his country and the United States that had received cautious approval from tribal leaders and the nation's elders after a loya jirga meeting in Kabul concluded on Sunday.
In the speech explaining his decision, Karzai said he wants more progress towards a peace agreement with the Taliban and assurances that U.S. soldiers will discontinue their abuse of the Afghan people by ending night raids on homes. Though the U.S. has demanded the deal be signed by the end of this year, Karzai said he wants to wait until after the next presidential elections, sheduled for April.
As the Associated Press reports:
Although the mercurial leader did not fully spell out his reasons for deferring its signature until after the April 5 elections, the move was a slap in the face to U.S. officials who had repeatedly asked for a deal by the end of the year.
The U.S. administration has insisted the deal be finalized by the end of next month, warning that planning for a post-2014 military presence may be jeopardized if it is not approved. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel both asked last week that it be signed by the end of the year.
Failure to do so could be the final blow to the Bilateral Security Agreement, leaving the Americans without a legal basis to keep forces in the country for up to a decade to train and mentor Afghan troops who remain ill-prepared to face a persistent Taliban insurgency.
The U.S. has said it will pull all its forces out of Afghanistan without it, as it did when Iraq failed to sign a similar agreement. Most of America's allies have also said they will pull out their troops in without the deal, a withdrawal that could put at risk more than $8 billion a year pledged by the international community for Afghan security forces and the country's development.
And the Guardian adds:
The agreement will allow US soldiers to stay on at nine bases, mentoring the still ill-equipped and patchily trained Afghan police and army, and pursuing al-Qaida and linked groups.
It is politically sensitive for many reasons, not least because it undermines Afghanistan's reputation as the "graveyard of empires", with the ignominious withdrawal of Soviet forces referenced several times in jirga speeches on Sunday.
But without a deal, the US is unlikely to part with the $4bn (£2.50bn) a year needed to pay the Afghan army, or provide the helicopters and other equipment promised.
Many Afghans feel that the imperfect deal is the only protection they have against powerful neighbours. One of Karzai's security advisers warned parliament that without the agreement the country would be isolated "among wolves", and his military chief asked opponents of the deal to say where else they would come up with police and army funding.
At the end of the Loya Jirga, which has no legally binding powers, a string of delegates came up to the podium to commend the deal, some to ask for small changes, but the majority to urge Karzai to sign the agreement by the end of year.
Karzai chose to ignore those requests, warning his audience that "Afghanistan has always won the war but lost in politics". He added that he planned to carry on with negotiations because the US had broken previous commitments to protect the country and support the peace process.
"Lack of trust is the core of the problem," his spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said before the speech, adding that Karzai thought American officials were bluffing when they warned of a total pullout by the US. "We don't believe there is a zero option," he said.
US Bullying at TPP Negotiations for Big Pharma Profits. Intellectual Property Rights and the Sale of Generic Drugs
“The world should stand up to the United States. US corporations are not more important than people’s lives.”
A key dispute in the TPP negotiations is the patents on pharmaceutical drugs and medical procedures. Long patents inflate the profits of the pharmaceutical industry by not allowing less expensive generic drugs on the market.
This means that people around the world will not be able to afford critical, often life-saving, drugs and medical procedures. It also means that countries like Japan, Australia and New Zealand that have national health care systems will see the cost of healthcare rise to a breaking point, undermining some of the best health systems in the world.
In order for the US to get its way, Stan McCoy, Assistant US Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation, is chairing the meetings on intellectual properties and medicines. He has been using bullying tactics to force countries to agree to positions that will harm people in the countries negotiating the TPP, including the US.
“The US has adopted a strategy of exhaustion in its bullying of negotiators on the crucial intellectual property chapter to force countries to trade away health in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations in Salt Lake City,” according to Professor Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who is monitoring the negotiations. ”The US has stepped up its aggression as they move towards their ‘end point’ of the TPP ministerial meeting in Singapore from 7 to 10 December.”
Margaret Flowers, MD a health policy expert from the US says
“The Office of the US Trade Representative is putting the interests of trans-national health corporations before the needs of people. If the US position is forced through, the TPP will extend patents for medications, medical devices and even procedures for exorbitant lengths of times. This will inflate prices, keeping treatments out of reach for those who need them. This will cause unnecessary suffering and death, especially for the most vulnerable populations, and will undermine health systems around the world and at home.”
“This is a loaded game,” Professor Kelsey said. “McCoy sets the agenda and timetable. Negotiators are working from morning until late at night and preparing to work all night, if necessary. ”This is a crucial period for New Zealand and a number of other countries,” Kelsey observed. The text published by Wikileaks last week shows they have tabled an alternative to the US proposed text that has been repeatedly rejected.”
“New Zealand’s trade minister Tim Groser and his counterparts from the other ten countries must tell the US to stop this behaviour now,” Kelsey said. Flowers added: “Countries negotiating with the United States should not allow themselves to be bullied but should stand up to the United States. It is looking very unlikely that President Obama will be able to get TPP through the Congress. Why would any country negotiate against the interests of their people?”
The US has around twenty people in Salt Lake City for the intellectual property chapter, who can rotate. Some countries have only one delegate for crucial talks on intellectual property on medicines. Their negotiations on medicines have been extended beyond the dates that were scheduled before negotiators came. They have continued despite the fact that some health negotiators, especially from poor countries, could not extend their stay.
This follows a pattern of abuse over recent rounds reported in Inside US Trade and other media, where McCoy has acted as a gatekeeper, deciding what proposals from other countries are allowed into the text and what are not.
“This is an early warning of the extreme bullying that can be expected in when the trade ministers seek to close the deal off in December,” Professor Kelsey warned.
Contact: Prof Kelsey is in Salt Lake City she can be contacted through text messages at +64 21 765 055. Margaret Flowers can be contacted at 410-591-0892
Cops In the Act
Unspeakable Horrors in a Country on the Verge of Genocide
By David Smith Bossangoa
Militias in the Central African Republic are slitting children's throats, razing villages and throwing young men to the crocodiles. What needs to happen before the world intervenes? Continue
Beirut Bombs Are Much More than Syria War Spillover
By Rami G. Khouri
This development in the context of three older phenomena that have now come together to bring us to the brink of an Armageddon-like confrontation among two gigantic indigenous forces that can ravage the entire Middle East. Continue
AIPAC VS Obama
Israel Lobby Says Either Obama Backs Down on Iran Or Its War
By M J Rosenberg
Top AIPAC staffer, warns President Obama today that he either abandon negotiations with Iran (and impose new sanctions) or its war. Continue
This is the Real Hypocrisy.
The False Analogy of Syria and Palestine
By Jonathan Cook
Those who want revolution are looking to build it on the bodies of Syrians who have little hope of liberating themselves. Continue
Digging in: Why US won’t leave Afghanistan
By Pepe Escobar
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How Gullible Are Americans?
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A New Plot Hatches
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Deal Reached on Iran's Nuclear Program
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President Obama Makes a Statement on Iran
Video
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White House Fact Sheet on Iran Nuclear Deal
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 23, 2013
Fact Sheet: First Step Understandings Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program. Continue
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The Battle of the Titans
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Hillary Clinton: War Criminal Warns
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The Problem is Civil Obedience
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Netanyahu: Israel Is ‘By Itself,’ ‘Not Bound By This Agreement’
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A Warning Or A Promise?
Israeli Leaders Denounce Geneva Accord
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By David Smith, Guardian UK
22 November 13
Militias in the Central African Republic are slitting children's throats, razing villages and throwing young men to the crocodiles. What needs to happen before the world intervenes?
massacre of the innocents is taking place in the heart of Africa as the world looks the other way.
One man describes how his four-year-old son's throat was slit, and how he saw a snake swallowing a baby. A woman explains that she is caring for a young girl because her mother went searching for medicine and was bludgeoned to death with Kalashnikov rifles. A young man tells how he was bound and thrown to the crocodiles, but managed to swim to safety.
This is the world of horrors that the Central African Republic (CAR) has become. Thousands of people are dying at the hands of soldiers and militia gangs or from untreated diseases such as malaria. Boys and girls as young as eight are pressganged into fighting between Christians and Muslims. There are reports of beheadings and public execution-style killings. Villages are razed to the ground.
Never much more than a phantom state, the CAR has sucked in thousands of mercenaries from neighbouring countries and, France warned on Thursday, now stands "on the verge of genocide". Yet many would struggle to find the country on a map, despite the clue in its afterthought name.
The humanitarian emergency in the CAR, a landmass bigger than France where the average male life expectancy is 48, remains a blind spot for most of the international community. Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, noted recently that the situation in the CAR has been referred to as "the worst crisis most people have never heard of".
That is nothing new for a country that stands as one of the most profound indictments of European colonialism, a contrivance that since independence in 1960 has endured five coups, infrastructure run on a shoestring and a self-declared emperor whose lavish coronation was inspired by Napoleon. Rich in gold, diamonds, timber and uranium, the CAR has proved irresistible to warlords such as Joseph Kony, the leader of a cult-like militia who the government claimed this week is finally negotiating surrender.
The latest eruption began in March when the unpopular president, François Bozizé, fled by helicopter with five suitcases after being overthrown by a loose coalition of rebels, bandits and guns for hire known as the Seleka, meaning "alliance" in the local language. One of its leaders, Michel Djotodia, declared himself president - the first Muslim to rule this majority Christian nation of 4.6 million people. What Médecins sans Frontières termed "a crisis on top of a crisis" for the population accelerated considerably in September when Djotodia officially disbanded the Seleka. Many of the rebels refused to disarm and leave the militias as ordered but veered further out of control, killing, looting and burning villages. They also systematically stripped administrative offices down to the light fittings and destroyed public records.
The US estimates that nearly 400,000 people have been displaced - many hiding in the jungle without access to malaria or HIV treatment - and 68,000 have gone to neighbouring countries.
The Seleka are playing judge, jury and executioner without regard even for Djotodia. Last Saturday, when a prominent judge was assassinated by men on motorbikes in the ramshackle capital, Bangui, the Seleka rounded up three suspects and offered his family the chance to kill them; when the family refused, citing the judge's dedication to due process, the Seleka shot the suspects dead outside their front gate. The family still do not know if they were the real culprits.
Two days later and 185 miles away in the town of Bossangoa, Jislain Ngangaguende was among five men accused of plotting against the Seleka who were tied up, beaten with guns and thrown off a bridge into a river with perils including crocodiles and hippos. "I started to drink water so I brought my head up, but a soldier saw me and tried to shoot me," recalls the 24-year-old, multiple sticking plasters on his head. "I stayed down for minutes and when I came up they were gone. I bit on a branch and moved up the river but my hands were still tied behind my back. I thought I was dead but the power of God made me get out."
Fear of the Seleka's brutality can be seen in ghost villages that line a rutted dirt road running north of Bangui through a vast sprawl of lush green African bush. Mudbrick houses with thatched roofs stand empty beneath the trees, raising the question of where the residents have fled. The answer can be found in Bossangoa, where about 34,000 people have sought refuge at the St Antoine de Padoue Cathedral.
Inside, the white-walled church remains immaculately clean. Two delicate chandeliers hang from a wood-beam ceiling and, beyond the rows of empty pews, flowers grace the altar and a fresco depicts the sun, a golden chalice and two angels against a blue sky. But the serenity mocks the monumental human tragedy manifesting itself outside the padlocked gate.
The Catholic mission compound is a melee of men, women and many children, their colourful T-shirts and dresses wearing a layer of grime, some carrying bowls of food or firewood on their heads, some even restarting their lives with barber shops, cooking pots, food stalls, sewing machines and livestock. Washing lines hang between row after row of blue and white tarpaulin tents marked Unicef. It is a sanctuary of sorts, with a constant hubbub of voices, but the cramped conditions leave women sleep roughing in corridors, children playing in the dirt, waste piling up and worries about an outbreak of cholera.
Everyone here has a sad story to tell. Zita Nganamodei, 26, has a baby girl tied to her back who is not her own. Yesterday, she says, her neighbour, Josephine Kolefei, brought the baby for medical treatment without realising she was crossing an arbitrary boundary that the Seleka had just imposed. The 35-year-old was beaten with a Kalashnikov and taken to hospital, where she died. "I went to site and found the baby on the ground," says Nganamodei, who has two children of her own. "I brought her to the hospital to be treated."
She says she will now take care of the girl, 18-month-old Arethas Demba, but will one day have to explain how her mother died. "I do not know why they had to kill her. I ask that justice be done for this killing. I don't know what will happen in the future if these killings continue."
Meanwhile a 35-year-old first aid worker who wants to be known as Papa Romeo claims that, on 8 November in the village of Bombi Te, the Seleka were outrun by motorcyclists carrying weapons and took revenge on the population. "My wife was in the field with our four-year-old, Richide," he says. "The Seleka took her money and gold and told her to leave and not come back.
"They started to attack my son. They tried to shoot him but the gun was not working. So they slit his throat instead. What threat does this child pose to the Seleka? He is just a child. My heart is right here: if Michel Djotodia was here, my heart would destroy him."
More than 30 people have been killed in the village of around 5,000, situated near a gold mine about 30 miles from Bossangoa, Romeo estimates. "I went to the field where my wife was and found a boa constrictor eating a baby because its mother had been killed. Then I saw a woman shot in the leg with a child whose intestines were falling out."
What started as a political movement against the corrupt and autocratic Bozizé is now taking on an ominously religious character. Nearly all the Seleka are Muslim, including mercenaries from neighbouring Chad and the notorious Janjaweed from Sudan's Darfur region. An "us and them" mentality of mutual distrust and paranoia is taking root, with some Christians taking up arms in vigilante militias known as "anti-balaka" - meaning anti-sword or anti-machete - and committing atrocities of their own, giving the Seleka a pretext for yet more aggression. The spiral of violence has become a recruiting sergeant for thousands of child soldiers.
Everyone at the Catholic mission in Bossangoa is Christian; internally displaced Muslims are gathered in a part of town including about 450 at a school, where wood desks and benches lie abandoned under trees and the blackboards are frozen at 2 August 2013. It is a stark physical separation. Romeo adds: "We have never seen religions tensions like this in the CAR before. The CAR is not a Muslim country; it is a Christian country. We have never seen so many Muslims in the country before. They have come from other countries." Like many in the CAR, he feels it is being ignored and abandoned to its fate. "International leaders should open their eyes to what is going on. Children are sleeping on the floor like goats. Is it because we have black skin?"
The Seleka are also torturing suspected enemies, according to a 47-year-old who gives his name only as Laurent. When they accused him of trying to pass on fake money, he claims, they jailed him and tortured two of his adult sons with a pepper paste rubbed into the armpits and legs to create a burning sensation. "They put it in the ears and nose of one of my sons and forced him to inhale it, then hit him so he almost asphyxiated. He was bleeding from his ears and mouth. I asked them to kill me and let my children go."
Eventually they were released. The son, 24, spent two days in hospital and still has breathing difficulties. Laurent, who has 12 children in all, adds: "The Seleka are criminals. In the beginning, the relations between Christians and Muslims were good here but the Muslims followed the Seleka and now things have changed."
The Catholic mission is presided over by Father Frédéric Tonfio, struggling to cope with the influx and working with a local imam to keep the peace across the sectarian divide. "The Christians feel betrayed by the Muslims and are starting to feel vengeances in their hearts," he warns. "This is a very big challenge for the church."
Tonfio is pleading for global intervention before it is too late. "I have only been able to count on my colleagues in the church. The silence of the international community is like they are accomplices allowing this to happen. It's almost as if the Sekela is stronger than the international community. Everyone knows what is going on here. Every day that we delay, more people die."
The local Seleka commanders, officially now part of the national army, deny responsibility for what Amnesty International has called human rights violations on an "unprecedented scale" and claim Tonfio is being obstructive. A Chadian colonel named Saleh says: "He says one thing and does something else. We said to everyone at the church they can return to their homes but they refused. Civilians need to return home because we will take care of their security.
"We don't say this is Christian or this is Muslim. We work for everybody. Even if someone who's Muslim is wrong, we will put him on the right path."
The atmosphere remains tense and unpredictable here and in other towns. Bouca, to the east, has been destroyed in heavy fighting in recent days, with around 3,000 people - more than half of them children - again seeking sanctuary at the Catholic mission there. Lewis Mudge, a Human Rights Watch researcher, says he witnessed a Seleka colonel telling them: "If there are people here tomorrow at eight o'clock in the morning, we will shoot and burn the mission. If you are still here, you will see what we do."
The arrival of African regional peacekeepers neutralised that threat for the time being, but their 2,500-strong force is still too small and ill-equipped to carry out its mandate of protecting civilians. French armoured vehicles could also be seen patrolling north of Bangui again this week but their contingent of 400 troops can do little more than protect the airport and other assets. The UN security council meets on Monday discuss a possible peacekeeping mission.
Headline-grabbing claims of mass rapes or infiltration by Islamist militant groups such as Boko Haram from Nigeria or al-Shabaab from Somalia are currently unfounded, according to Mudge and humanitarian sources working in the area. One said of the Seleka: "These guys are not Islamic fundamentalists. They are Muslim-lite. They are here for prosperity and power; they are not here to change anyone's confession."
Nor, says Mudge, should this be called a genocide - yet. It is too chaotic for that, meaning that the international community still has time to prevent another Rwanda. Six thousand peacekeepers would be a start, Mudge says. "The world needs to find the CAR on the map and start paying attention on humanitarian grounds. It's still early enough to avert a crisis in this country. It's not a genocide and it's not a civil war but it's certainly trending in that direction."
The Central African Republic
Population 4.6 million (UN, 2012)
Capital Bangui
Area 622,984 sq km (240,535 sq miles)
Life expectancy 51 years for women 48 years for men (UN)
Religion Christian 50%, Muslim 15%, indigenous beliefs 35% History
1894 Area named Ubangi-Chari and set up as a dependency by the French
1910 Integrated in the Federation of French Equatorial Africa
1958 The territory gains self-government within French Equatorial Africa and Barthélemy Boganda becomes PM
1960 David Dacko becomes president of now independent Central African Republic
1962 President makes the country a one-party state. The Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa, or Mesan, becomes the only legal party
1965 Army commander Jean-Bédel Bokassa gains power
1976 Bokassa crowns himself emperor in the renamed Central African Empire
1988 Bokassa sentenced to death for embezzlement and murder
1993 Military rule ends with the election of President Ange-Félix Patassé
2003 Patassé is ousted by rebel leader François Bozizé who declares himself president
2007 Three rebel groups ‚ the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR), the Union of Republican Forces (UFR) and the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP)‚ form an alliance called Seleka. After an accord with the government, they join the CAR army
2012 Some rebels take up arms once more and gain control of the north and centre of the country
2013 Seleka rebels seize power in the capital, Bangui, and Bozizé flees. Rebel leader Michel Djotodia becomes president Luc Torres
Israel’s Unwritten Veto Power: Immunity to International Law
Many of the 33 nations that cast a vote in favor of the creation of the Israeli state on the November 29, 1947 meeting of the United Nations General Assembly probably didn’t know that the outcome of their vote will eventually become a manifestation of lawlessness and inattention to the internationally-recognized conventions and regulations; the conventions and rules that the same countries had once voted to institutionalize and ratify.
But unfortunately, it’s true that today, the Israeli regime is the most unruly, violent and irresponsible member of the international community that thanks to its unshakable ties with the United States enjoys immunity to the international law and is exempt from any kind of accountability.
Since its inception, Israel has been involved in the business of causing problems and troubles to not only its neighbors and the people whose homeland it occupies, but to the whole world.
Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people and the way it deprives them of their fundamental and natural rights embodies a clear violation of the principles of human rights and internal law. But instead of being held accountable over its criminal actions and policies, Israel continues to throw a spanner in the works of others thumb its nose at those who dare to criticize it.
It’s indisputable that Israel’s security is extremely shaky and feeble and will collapse as soon as the United States decides to lift its unconditional support for Tel Aviv. However, now that the two allies enjoy warm relations, Israel is immune to accountability over its violations of international law, and keeps up doing things which could lead to severe punishments for any other wrongdoer. So, it’s not too exaggerative to say that Israel is wielding an unwritten veto power that allows it to practice violence and aggression and be exempt from any kind of responsibility. Let’s look in brief at some of Israel’s violations of international law and its illegal conducts which run counter to the rules and conventions which the world countries have long recognized.
First of all, Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian lands is illegal and unjustifiable. It’s not only an unlawful practice at the first place, but its continuation is a violation of the Principle 1 of the “Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States” adopted in 1970.
After the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 laid the groundwork for the creation of a Jewish state on the Mandatory Palestine, a 9-month-long war began between a military coalition of the Arab States and the Israeli forces in March 1948. As a result of the war, Israel occupied 60% of the regions which the UN General Assembly had allocated to the Palestinians, including the Jaffa, Lydda and Ramle area, Galilee, some parts of the Negev, a wide strip along the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem road, West Jerusalem and some territories in the West Bank.
19 years later, the Third Arab-Israeli War (also known as the Six-Day War or June War) which was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, again gave Israel the opportunity to occupy and annex more Arab lands. Within six days, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
After these illegal occupations, the UN Security Council has been referring to Israel as the occupying power in its resolutions. The Security Council Resolution 242 adopted on November 22, 1967 clearly called upon Israel to withdraw its forces from the territories it occupied in the recent conflict. The resolution’s preamble underlined the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East in which every State in the area can live in security.”
In an article which the former Palestinian Foreign Minister Dr. Nasser al-Qudwa sent to The New York Times in 2002, but was rejected by the editorial team, it was noted that “what makes the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land illegal is not the fact that it occurred during the war of 1967… What makes the Israeli occupation illegal is that it has existed for 35 years, during which time it transformed into a form of colonialism and suppressed and oppressed an entire people for decades, preventing them from the exercise of their right to self-determination and the establishment of their State, Palestine.”
“As for Occupied East Jerusalem, which the Israeli government illegally annexed in 1980, the Security Council, in resolution 478 (1980), determined ‘that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and, in particular, the recent “basic law” on Jerusalem are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith,” wrote Dr. al-Qudwa.
Therefore, it’s clearly observable that Israel, which the Security Council explicitly calls an “occupying power”, has predicated its existence on the illegal occupation of the lands which don’t belong to it. All the documents and evidences testify in condemnation of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian.
Aside from the very issue of occupation, different aspects of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian citizens violate the international law.
Since the day of Nakba, the day when the Israeli state came into existence, serious restrictions were imposed on the Palestinians intending to travel across the Occupied Territories, the Gaza Strip and West Bank. By putting roadblocks, checkpoints, dirt piles, concrete blocks, ditches and metal gates on the roads, the Israeli forces forbid the Palestinian citizens from commuting over the Israeli cities and the Occupied Territories.
This is while the freedom of movement within states is recognized in article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Israel’s conducts against the Palestinians’ freedom of movement are illegal and unlawful according to this convention. A pro-Palestinian peace movement in Jerusalem called “B’Tselem” says that these limitations and restrictions have caused serious economic, social and medical difficulties for the Palestinian citizens that they breach the rights guaranteed by the “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”
The Israeli settlements on the Palestinian lands are another case of the violation of international law by the lawless Israeli regime. According to the Israeli ministry of interior, there are 121 settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights, all being lands illegally occupied by Israel. Around 350,000 Jewish settlers live in these construction units.
According to the reports published by the Council for European Palestinian Relations, the settlements are illegal and contrary to international law from different aspects.
Article 46 of the Hague Convention prohibits confiscation of private property in occupied territory.
Article 55 of the same document stipulates that “the occupying state shall be regarded only as administrator of public buildings, real estate, forests and agricultural estates… It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.”
UN Security Council Resolution 446 (1979) and 465 (1980) both denounce the settlements. Rex. 446 stated “that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
Article 49, paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly stipulates that “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Israel is implementing many other policies which in turn run counter to the principles of international law. Its discriminatory measures against the Palestinians including the racial profiling of the Arabs, its refusal to permit the Arab citizens to join their families in the Occupied Territories, the policy of systematic isolation of the Palestinian citizens in their lands, its continued blockade of the Gaza Strip which is leading to a human catastrophe in the densely populated coastal enclave, imprisonment of the Palestinian citizens without charges or proper judicial trial, unwarranted disruption of medical care and destruction of the public and private properties of the Palestinians are all instances which show that Israel doesn’t attach any importance to the international law, and there’s nobody to hold it accountable, as well.
Such practices resemble the crimes of the apartheid regime of South Africa and fit the United Nations’ definition for apartheid. However, whenever the international community reached a consensus to condemn Israel for its criminal actions, it was the United States that used its veto power and acted as a representative of Israel at the Security Council to protect the interests of Tel Aviv and prevent the world powers from incriminating it. Former Time Magazine Bureau Chief in Israel Donald Neff has noted that the United States used its veto power on behalf of Israel 32 times and blocked the resolutions which either condemned Israel’s actions or called on it to adopt a certain measure in favor of the Arab people.
It sounds like Israel is itself a member of the Security Council with a veto power. What is clear is that as long as the United States doesn’t allow the world to stand firm against Israel’s criminal and illegal conducts, the international law will continue to be ridiculed and undercut.
82 Percent of Voters in Florida Back Medical Marijuana |
| By: Jon Walker Friday November 22, 2013 7:35 am |
Medical marijuana has overwhelming support among every generation, partisan leaning, and ethnic group. Even 79 percent of senior citizens back medical marijuana and they tend to be the group least supportive of any marijuana reforms.
