Homeland Insecurity
7 Jul 2008
In another bizarre twist to Washington’s often illegal, irrational ‘war on terror,’ peaceful, lawful human rights campaigners are now apparently being refused entry to the US — without any right of appeal. Noordin Mengal, a British citizen and Baluch human rights defender, was detained and deported by US immigration when he arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport from Dubai last week. Mengal is the grandson of the veteran Baluch national leaders Sardar Attaullah Mengal and Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri. He is a representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council on behalf of Interfaith International and is a member of the lawful, non-violent Baluchistan National Party (BNP). Baluchistan was invaded and annexed by Pakistan in 1948. It has been under military occupation ever since. Washington’s ally in the so-called war on terror, the Pakistani President and long-time dictator Pervez Musharraf, has been waging a savage war against the people of Baluchistan, This has included indiscriminately bombing civilian areas using US-supplied fighter aircraft and attack helicopters. Unlike Musharraf, some of whose army and intelligence services are protecting the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, the BNP is peaceful, democratic and secular. Its members ought to be supported, not harassed, by the US. But the ignorant, simple-minded Bush regime doesn’t like human rights defenders who challenge its foreign allies and stooges. In particular, it is fearful of campaigners who expose US complicity with dictators and with the perpetration of crimes against humanity. Presumably, this is why Mengal was stopped and sent back? There is no other explanation, since all his papers were in order and all his humanitarian campaigning is non-violent and constitutional. Mengal has never been arrested in the past and has never been convicted or charged by any government. He has never been accused of any offence and has no charges pending against him. Does the US government care? Apparently not. It seems to ignore the US constitution when it suits it to do so. After being held in custody in appalling conditions for over 26 hours by the Department of Homeland Security, Mengal was refused entry to the US and deported. No reasons given. No right of appeal. This is Bush-style democracy (sic) in action. Apart from humiliating and inconveniencing Mengal, does this matter to the rest of us? Yes. It is further evidence of the corrosion of the rule of law and human rights by a US administration that is making major blunders in its bid to protect the country from terrorist attack. Mengal’s mistreatment by the US authorities is worth telling in some detail because it highlights the lawless abuses and shamelful ignorance that often characterises President Bush’s foreign and domestic policies. On his arrival at Newark at 6.30pm on 23 June, Mengal was detained and interrogated by officers of the Customs and Border Protection Enforcement section of the Department of Homeland Security. Mengal was questioned about the situation in Baluchistan and his human rights activities. Although he cooperated fully and gave a truthful account, he was subsequently told that he would not be granted entry to the United States and was, in effect, deported. Under the US visa waiver programme, however, law-abiding British nationals are exempted from formal visa procedures and can freely visit the US for a maximum stay of up to three months on each entry. Mengal asked an officer if he could call an official at the British embassy. The official confirmed his right to do so, but told him it would only be possible just prior to his departure. In the end, this assurance was voided. Moreover, Mengal was denied access to a telephone to contact his family and no one from the US government informed Mengal’s family of what was happening to him. According to Mengal, at the wholly unreasonable hour of 2am the next morning he was re-interrogated. At one point he was asked if he would like to phone someone within the US, as he was not allowed to call internationally. But then he was told it was too late in the night and he would have to wait until later in the morning. But this offer to later phone a US contact never materialised. A transcript of his interrogation was supposed to be given to him but wasn’t. It was eventually sent to him after he left the US, but it was doctored to falsely allege that he had declined offers to contact a lawyer and the British embassy. A little later Mengal was informed that he would be given a place to rest, but was made to sit on a chair for nearly 10 hours, during which time he was repeatedly told that he would soon be taken to another facility. At approximately 6am on 24 June he was belatedly given a thermoplastic blanket (disposable emergency sheet made of yellow polythene with a cellulose matting insulation) to keep warm. At around 11 am, officers moved Mengal to another facility. The authorities shackled him like a common criminal, locking his handcuffs to a heavy chain looped around his waist, and led him through the airport lounge to an armoured detention vehicle. Mengal was driven to the Elizabeth detention facility in New Jersey, where he was placed in a cell with a solid steel door. He estimates he was there for over five hours. On questioning the detention officer regarding his status, Mengal was told that he was not a criminal, nor an offender. Mengal asked the officer if a British citizen had ever been detained at this facility. The officer replied: “Never.” In the evening of 24 June, Mengal was once again restrained with fetters and manacles and transported back to the airport. He asked officers of the Department of the Homeland Security if he had the right to call a lawyer. He was told he was not now entitled to one and could only have done so on the day of his arrival. On the day of his arrival, however, he was not informed of any of his rights, nor was he allowed to contact anyone. At 8pm, Mengal was interrogated again by officials from US Immigration and Customs enforcement. They disparaged and dismissed his human rights work. He was made to feel like an enemy of the US. Shortly before he was put on a Qatar Airways flight at about 9pm, Mengal was told he was being sent back to Dubai and that if he returned to the US, even having attained a visa, there was still a possibility he would be denied entry. With typical US government double-speak, Mengal was informed that he was not being deported, but rather was regarded as “inadmissible.” At no point was he ever told why he was refused admission to the US. Even now, he doesn’t know why. Throughout his detention, Mengal was denied the right to contact an official from the British embassy. Isn’t this a violation of the Vienna Convention? Are not detained foreign nationals supposed to have the right to contact their diplomatic representatives? It seems like the Department of Homeland Security can’t tell the difference between a terrorist and an anti-terrorist, democratic, secular, peaceful Baluch human rights defender. In which case, the war on terror is bound to fail. The US government’s clumsy, ignorant victimisation of another innocent person — Mengal isn’t the first and he won’t be the last — helps explain why so many people hate America. This is a nation that professes a love of liberty yet often acts like a tin-pot tyranny.

Iraq task, Iran risk
7 Jul 2008
The architects of the “war on terror” in the George W Bush administration will soon be leaving office. But the four months until the United States presidential election on 4 November 2008 could be momentous. In Iraq and Iran, what happens in the next four months – or does not happen – will shape events in the next four years and even beyond (see “Washington’s choice: subdue Iran, secure Iraq”, 12 June 2008). The current level of conflict in Iraq is lower than for most of the period since the start of the war in March-April 2003, but it continues at a substantial level. The United States military’s losses have also been on a declining trend [1], but it still lost twenty-nine people in June 2008, an increase from nineteen in May. But this is far from the only index [2] of the fragility of the current security environment, as two recent incidents and one longer-term factor show. The first incident is a US military raid on 27 June 2008 on the town of Janaja in southern Iraq that killed a civilian reported to be a relative of Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. The operation involved sixty US soldiers as well as Apache helicopter-gunships; did not include Iraqi units; and was apparently conducted without the knowledge of the provincial authorities, even though Karbala province was supposed to have been under Iraqi control. The response [3] of the Iraqis was, not surprisingly, sharp (see Hannah Allam & Sahar Issa, “U.S. Raid Angers Iraq [4]”, Miami Herald, 28 June 2008). The second is a suicide-bombing attack in Anbar province on 28 June that killed twenty-three people including three US marines, which an al-Qaida insurgent group said that it had perpetrated (see Alissa J Rubin, “Group Claims Responsibility for Iraq Attack [5]”, New York Times, 29 June 2008). The attack was targeted [6] against local Sunni leaders who were supporters of the anti-al-Qaida “awakening movement”, and the militant responsible had been a member of the movement. It was, in short, an “inside job”. The trend is the construction right across Baghdad of a network of walls designed to separate armed factions and communities. These have contributed to the decrease in violence, but have also produced a prison-like environment that is resented by many citizens (see Hamza Hendawi, “Iraqis Say Walls Protect But Feel Like Prison [7]”, Associated Press, 28 June 2008). The Iraq outlook Beyond the immediate security environment, two large developments are a signal of Washington’s current strategic thinking in relation to Iraq. The first is the opening up of Iraqi oil reserves to thirty-five companies in a bidding competition to increase oil production. At the outset the process involves six oilfields, though five short-term contracts are also being offered to American and European companies (see Sudarsan Raghavan & Steven Mufson, “Iraq Opens Oil Fields to Global Bidding [8]”, Washington Post, 1 July 2008). The opening of the Iraqi oil industry to private companies represents a major departure from the nationalised industry of the Saddam Hussein era. Such a process was an early aim of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA [9]) established in the wake of the US invasion as the key instrument of US political control in the post-Saddam flux. Many believed and more hoped that a partially functioning Iraqi government has been able to take an independent line on this issue, though it now appears that the process of privatisation has been closely overseen by a group of American advisers. This group itself, moreover, was led by a team from the US state department, thus giving the George W Bush administration a direct role in the process (see Andrew E Kramer, “U.S. helped Iraqis on oil contracts [10]”, International Herald Tribune, 1 July 2008). This series of columns has consistently argued that the primary purpose of the termination of the Saddam Hussein regime was less to gain control of Iraq’s oil reserves, even if they were around four times the size of US domestic reserves; rather, it was the location of Iraq in a region containing nearly two-thirds of all of the world’s oil that was more significant (see, for example, “Iraq’s danger signals [10]”, 13 December 2007). Nonetheless, the manner in which Iraq’s oil is coming under external control does begin to give some credence to those who claim a more direct connection between Iraq’s oil and the decision to go to war. The plan to expand Iraqi oil production carries a real concern for its designers: that the pipelines and processing plants will be vulnerable to the kind of insurgent activity that inflicted such enormous economic damage in 2004-05. This fear may be connected with the second large development – the plan to maintain US military forces at current levels for at least until mid-2009. The last of the five additional combat-brigades that formed the year-long US “surge” is now departing the country, but plans are already underway to bring 30,000 fresh troops into the country early in 2009 (see Lolita C Baldor, “U.S. To Send 30,000 Troops To Iraq [11]”, Associated Press, 28 June 2008). These will replace existing contingents in a routine fashion, but what is less remarked is their effect on overall US deployment; namely, that that 142,000 troops will remain in Iraq, a number actually 7,000 more than were present before the surge began in February 2007. It is always possible that violence will decrease to the extent that further withdrawals can take place, but the Pentagon is not currently planning for this. Its calculation is most likely based on a real fear that many of the insurgents are lying low and will return to the conflict in the coming months. If this proves correct, then a likely target will be Iraq’s oil installations just as foreign companies are moving in. This too will become clear by November 2008. The Iran prospect The Pentagon’s current preparation for a major long-term military presence in Iraq is accompanied by a sharpening of rhetoric over the putative threat posed by Iran’s nuclear plans. Most of this is at present emanating from some Israeli commentators and some of the Washington-based think-tanks and policy groups that identify themselves with what they imagine Israel’s national interest to be. Most analysts are aware of the capacity of the Iranians to respond to any military attack by the United States or Israel in numerous ways, by (for example) escalating tension in Iraq or engineering a massive spike in crude oil prices. This often leads them as a result to discount the risk of an attack on Iran. Against this, some circles in Washington argue that Iran’s capacity to react has been much overplayed; in this view, Iran is actually far weaker than is commonly appreciated (see Seymour M Hersh, “Preparing the Battlefield [12]”, New Yorker, 7 July 2008). The conclusion is that now may be a good time to demonstrate resolve by targeting Tehran’s nuclear facilities, however limited they might currently be (see Gareth Porter, “‘Weak’ Iran ripe to be attacked [13]”, Asia Times, 1 July 2008). What has always to be remembered in weighing the effect of these nuances is that there is a bottom-line for Israel: namely, there must never be another country in the region that has nuclear weapons – deterrence must work only one way if Israel is to be secure. In addition, a strong thread within hardline Israeli political thinking in the present political conjuncture (though opinion on the matter is not uniform) is that a Barack Obama presidency would be bad news. He may have sounded hardline over Iran in his speech [14] to Aipac on 4 June 2008, but Obama is seen as a highly intelligent politician with a worrying streak of independence in him (see “Iran and the American election [14]”, 5 June 2008). It is troubling, then – a matter of concern to those in Israel and Washington who seek to resolve the Iran issue by force – that Obama is ahead of John McCain in the opinion polls. Perhaps, in such uncertain and unpredictable circumstances, now is the time to pre-empt Iranian nuclear developments – whatever the costs – rather than wait for an Obama victory and the nightmare prospect of talking to the enemy? These, then, are the four months that will determine the future of the region and much of the world – not least the long-term security of the state of Israel – for years ahead. Iran and Iraq at the heart of present concern, though the security deterioration in other areas deserves to be noted: Afghanistan and Pakistan (see Julian E Barnes & Peter Spiegel, “Afghanistan Attacks Rise, U.S. Says [15]”, Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2008), and parts of north Africa (see Michael Moss, “Algerian militants win new lease on life as Al Qaeda affiliate [16]”, International Herald Tribune, 1 July 2008). Whether the incoming White House tenant faces the ashes of a new landscape of war or merely the fallout of the old one, the world is in for a long and bumpy ride. Links: [1] http://icasualties.org/oif/ [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/01/AR200807… [3] http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080629/ts_nm/iraq_raid_dc_1 [4] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/story/586350.html [5] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/world/middleeast/29iraq.html?ref=middl… [6] http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2008/06/28/qaeda_claims_iraq_suicide_bom… [7] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080627/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_inside_the_walls… [8] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/01/ST20080701… [9] http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/cpa/ [10] http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/30/business/contracts.php [11] http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=116&sid=1430221 [12] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh/?yrail [13] http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JG02Ak04.html [14] http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/HQblog/gG5CKp [15] http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/25/world/fg-usafghan25 [16] http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/01/africa/01algeria.php

Compassionate Media Activism
6 Jul 2008
Media Lens is a UK media watch service. In this interview Media Lens discuss with Elephant Skin co-editor Matthew Bain how they have been strongly influenced by the Buddhist ideal of compassion and the role model of the Bodhisattva ? the hero who practices six great virtues known as ?perfections?. Bain: Please can you explain what Media Lens is? Media Lens: Media Lens is an online, UK-based media watch project, set up in 2001, providing detailed and documented criticism of bias and omissions in the British media. The Media Lens team consists of two editors (David Edwards and David Cromwell) and a webmaster (Oliver Maw). Through our free email Media Alerts, we provide detailed analysis of news reporting in the UK media, concentrating on the ?quality? liberal print and broadcast media. Our aim is to expose bias, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, omissions and untruths. We challenge journalists and editors by email and invite their response. We then collate and analyse the material and distribute a Media Alert to members of the public who have signed up for the service. We urge our readers to adopt a polite, rational and respectful tone when emailing journalists ? we strongly oppose all abuse and personal attack. We often then follow up our alerts with updates containing analysis of and commentary on mainstream responses to our alerts, our readers? emails, and so on. Media Alerts are archived at the Media Lens website (www.medialens.org). We also send out Cogitations to a separate list of subscribers ? these explore related themes from more personal, psychological and philosophical perspectives. Bain: How much success has Media Lens had? Media Lens: This isn?t really for us to say. We try not to worry too much about results. The veteran Australian journalist and film-maker John Pilger wrote this in the foreword to our new book, Guardians of Power (Pluto Press, 2006): ?The creators and editors of Medialens, David Edwards and David Cromwell, have had such influence in a short time that, by holding to account those who, it is said, write history?s draft, they may well have changed the course of modern historiography. They have certainly torn up the ?ethical blank cheque?, which Richard Drayton referred to, and have exposed as morally corrupt ?the right to bomb, to maim, to imprison without trial ??. Without Medialens during the attack on and occupation of Iraq, the full gravity of that debacle might have been consigned to oblivion, and to bad history.? On the other hand, the BBC?s Andrew Marr said (when he was still political editor): ?I?m afraid I think it is just pernicious and anti-journalistic. I note that you advertise an organisation called Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting so I guess at least you have a sense of humour. But I don?t think I will bother with ?medialens? next time, if you don?t mind.? So take your pick! Bain: You have said that you intend compassion to be the basis and motivating force behind the Media Lens project. How does this work in practice? Media Lens: We try to do whatever we believe is most likely to relieve suffering. There are several aspects to this. We try to focus on the most urgent issues of the day. If our government is trying to persuade the public to support a war against Iraq, we try to publicise arguments against mass violence as a solution to human problems. We point out the costs of violence and the benefits of responses rooted in restraint and compassion. Before the March 2003 invasion, we referred readers to credible estimates of the likely disastrous consequences for the civilian population of Iraq. We indicated the deep flaws in US-UK government arguments to show that war in fact was not at all necessary, that genuine peaceful alternatives existed. Basically, we tried to encourage peaceful opposition to our government?s determination to wage war for profit. The same with climate change ? it now threatens unprecedented catastrophe, the destruction of billions of human and animal lives. So we encourage readers to challenge newspapers on their promotion of cheap flights and mass consumerism generally. But in discussing specific issues we are hoping to raise awareness of deeper systemic problems inherent to political and economic systems rooted in the pursuit of unlimited profits. For example, how honest can a newspaper really be about the root causes of climate change when it depends for 75% of its revenue on big business advertising ? on precisely the companies selling the cheap flights, the new cars and so on ? in its own pages? We believe that we all need to acquire the tools of intellectual self-defence so that we can resist propaganda provoking hatred of foreign and domestic ?enemies?, and adverts stimulating greed, so that we can trust our own capacity for independent, critical thought. Our society encourages passivity and childlike dependence on authority. We encourage people to challenge authority, to have faith and confidence in themselves. We encourage people to challenge us, too ? nothing should be taken on blind trust. A third theme is that we encourage people to seek confidence and rationality in compassion, rather than in anger, say, or conformity. We emphasise peaceful challenges to authority. We reject not only violence, but also anger. Given that compassion, tolerance and patience are great virtues, then leaders promoting violence and greed are ideal objects for meditation. We can use them to strengthen our compassion and wisdom. Bain: Why are leaders promoting violence and greed ideal objects for meditation? Media Lens: In our view, Tony Blair, for example, has consciously deceived parliament and public in pursuit of a war of aggression ? the supreme war crime according to the Nuremberg tribunals. Blair?s actions have resulted in the deaths of several hundred thousand innocent people, as well as almost limitless pain, injury, anxiety, grief and other physical and mental torments. The motive, we also believe, is rooted in Western greed for control of natural resources in Iraq and in the Gulf. Is it possible to feel compassion for this man? We can reflect that Blair is a product of conditions ? he sees the world in a way dominated by his education, upbringing, friends, family and colleagues. Would he think and act the same way if he had been exposed to different conditions? Is he to blame for the conditions that influenced him? Is he the sole destructive actor or condition, or is he merely one tiny link in a vast chain of cause and effect that precedes and transcends him? We can argue, for example, that what has been done to Iraq is actually the culmination of billions of selfish thoughts in limitless individuals over decades, even centuries. After all, where does corporate greed for oil come from? Where does militarism come from? Does it come from Blair? Hardly. We can reflect on Blair?s lack of inherent existence ? who or what actually is Tony Blair? Is he his mind? Which part of his mind ? which thought? Is he any particular thought? Is there a creator of thoughts that we can call ?Blair?, or do thoughts merely arise from conditions beyond the control of some creator in the background (and would the ?creator?s? decisions and thoughts simply arise from conditions?), like bubbles forming and rising in a glass of lemonade? We can imagine the suffering Blair will undergo as a result of his uncompassionate actions and as a result of ageing, sickness and death. We can reflect that if we can muster some compassion for him then this strengthens our compassion for other people who appear less guilty of terrible crimes, less harmful. We visit a gym to lift weights to become stronger, do we not? If we can compassionately ?lift? Blair in our minds, then our compassion will surely be untroubled by most other tests in life. Bain: Your compassionate approach is inspired by Mahayana Buddhism, which offers the role model of the Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is anyone who, motivated by great compassion, continuously wishes to achieve the enlightened state of a Buddha in order to benefit all living beings without exception. The way of life of the Bodhisattva is the six perfections, the great virtues of generosity, moral discipline, patience, effort, mental stabilisation and wisdom. You have said that you aspire for your Media Alerts to embody these six perfections. Is such an aspiration achievable? Media Lens: The aspiration is certainly achievable although even to aspire to attain an enlightened state is an awesome achievement. Can we actually embody the six perfections in our work? Definitely not, at present. We are complete beginners who are far, far away from being able to embody these exalted mind states. However, we do aspire to value compassion, generosity and patience; and we do try to be motivated by concern for others rather than concern for our own welfare. We feel it is appalling for any journalist to compromise what he or she writes out of concern for career, status or the health of a bank account when real people like us are being killed in their tens of thousands, for example, in Iraq. Particularly when one reflects that if the media had done their job in 2002-2003, war would not have been possible. We believe that by aspiring to be more compassionate it is possible to make some small improvement and perhaps help others. But we are constantly aware that we may even be doing more harm than good ? making people more angry, more critical of others and less compassionate ? we keep this possibility very much in mind. Bain: One of the aspects of the perfection of generosity is giving fearlessness, in other words protecting other living beings from fear or danger. Your Media Alerts point out that mainstream news organisations cover some of the world?s most serious problems while obscuring their causes, and that as a result media consumers find themselves filled with feelings of anxiety and fear, not to mention powerlessness and apathy. Are you deliberately trying to release people from this state ? to give fearlessness? Media Lens: As you know, the roots of fearlessness also lie in a realistic appraisal of the situation we are in. If we think it?s safe to abuse, exploit and kill other beings, it is no bad thing to be made aware of the terrifying consequences of such actions. This dis-illusionment can lead from ignorance through fear to fearlessness. Similarly, we are quite happy to discuss the terrifying realities of climate change, war, and the compromise that makes these possible. But a major aim of what we?re doing is to address people?s confusion. The media is deeply bewildering ? the reality is summed up by the title of media analyst Danny Schecter?s book The More You Watch The Less You Know. Providing rational frameworks for understanding specific issues ? Haiti, Kosovo, East Timor, climate change ? and broader issues ? how the media works, the motives driving foreign policy ? surely gives people greater confidence that they can make sense of the world, and that they can therefore rely on their own judgement. We also try to explain the advantages of concern for others over self-cherishing. We don?t want people to feel dependent on us, we want them to feel that the issues are really not that complicated, and that anyone can form sensible judgements with a modicum of hard work. We also try to promote fearlessness by encouraging compassionate rather than angry responses to problems. We believe that anger is deeply demotivating, in fact crippling, whereas great compassion provides an inexhaustible, and in fact increasing, source of energy and inspiration. Bain: One of the aspects of a Bodhisattva?s moral discipline is not to criticise others, but to focus on his or her own faults instead. The Buddhist master Atisha said: ?Do not look for faults in others, but look for faults in yourself, and purge them like bad blood. Do not contemplate your own good qualities, but contemplate the good qualities of others, and respect everyone as a servant would.? (Quoted, Eight Steps to Happiness, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Tharpa Publications, 2000, p.261). Some of your Media Alerts are very critical of the work of individual journalists. Aren?t you breaking the Bodhisattva?s moral code by criticising others in this way? Media Lens: This is a question that concerns us greatly. We try to make clear that our focus is on faults in the arguments of journalists rather than in the journalists themselves. Typically, we will present a mainstream journalist?s arguments, contrast these with an alternative range of arguments based on verifiable facts and multiple credible sources, and invite readers to decide which arguments are more or less credible. Often we point out that an erroneous argument is actually part of a pattern that stretches right across the media, so that we are pointing to institutionalised bias rather than individual ?bad apples?. We often point out that the vast majority of journalists are not deliberately deceitful ? it?s not that they?re bad people, liars and so on ? there is no wicked conspiracy. We encourage readers to understand the systemic factors behind individual performance: journalists are selected because they have been educated to hold the right views by corporate media that are designed to maximise profits. The whole cultural, political and social system puts immense pressure on privileged journalists to hold ?the right? views about the world ? it is not their fault that they have little or no access to alternative arguments. On another level, one can even argue that it is not really their fault that they believe it is ?realistic? to prioritise their own self-interest above the interests of others ? that?s what the whole culture tells them to do. There are a couple of other considerations. Journalists who advanced arguments for war against Iraq in 2002-2003 were vital parts of a media-military machine that have resulted in the deaths of over one million Iraqis so far, and the devastation of an entire country. By themselves promoting mass violence as a solution to human problems, by persuading others to take those arguments seriously, they were causing immense harm to themselves and others. In his book, An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics, Peter Harvey writes: ?Asanga says that a Bodhisattva will lie so as to protect others from death or mutilation, though he will not lie to save his own life. He will slander an unwholesome adviser of a person, and use harsh, severe words to move someone from unwholesome to wholesome action.? (Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.139) In the Commentary on Dharmaraksita?s The Poison-Destroying Peacock Mind Training, Geshe Lhundub Sopa writes: ?If you should encounter some erroneous teaching that leads other beings into great suffering, such as rebirth in hell, you should not be indifferent. Rather, you should take action to combat such a harmful teaching. If you do this, you will be acting with a form of jealousy. This is not like ordinary jealousy, which is just the desire to ruin someone?s happiness, rather it is the desire to root out the wrong teaching so that the correct teaching will endure. While it appears to be jealousy, it is actually different; it is motivated by the concern that the source of happiness will be destroyed if the correct teaching disappears.? (Geshe Lhundub Sopa, Peacock In The Poison Grove, Wisdom Books, 2001, pp.254-5) In The Six Perfections, Geshe Sonam Rinchen writes: ?The tenth [way of assisting others] consists of giving support by castigating those who are engaged in detrimental activities. This may entail taking stern measures to stop them, since one should not condone or indulge others? fondness for harmful actions.? (Geshe Sonam Rinchen, The Six Perfections, Snow Lion, 1998, p.40) So although it is unpleasant to criticise journalists, and is risky both for their psychological welfare and our own ? it?s easy to become habitually negative, cynical and even angry in this work ? we believe it is important to do so. Bain: One of the aspects of the perfection of patience is not retaliating. Some of the journalists you have singled out for criticism have responded harshly ? basically they have retaliated. Isn?t this a natural response? Have you retaliated in return? Media Lens: If it was a natural response it would occur invariably in all people and cultures around the world. This is not the case. In her book, Ancient Futures, the linguist Helena Norberg-Hodge reported a remarkable absence of retaliation in the Buddhist culture of Ladakh, even amongst children. We believe that Buddhist practitioners meditating on the benefits of patience, the faults of anger, and the lack of inherent existence of the targets of anger, can completely remove the impulse to retaliation. We worry very much that by generating anger in journalists we are inadvertently causing harm. This may well be exacerbated by our encouraging members of the public to write to journalists. At the end of every email we append these words: ?The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. In writing letters to journalists, we strongly urge readers to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.? People do not always heed these words and sometimes send angry abuse to journalists. This is a source of real concern to us; it?s something we strongly discourage. Is it outweighed by the fact that receiving large number of mostly polite and rational emails can persuade journalists and newspapers to reconsider their stand on war, on the impact of rampant consumerism on climate change, as we believe has sometimes happened to some extent? We hope so. We do occasionally get angry, but generally we try to respond to abuse without anger, with restrained and polite emails. This emphasis on self-restraint is unusual in left-leaning political debate. We?ve noticed that this seems to have had quite an impact on both journalists and readers. Even journalists who have to deal with large numbers of emails ? which is not something anyone enjoys ? have responded positively to our work. In recent months senior journalists like Peter Barron (editor of Newsnight), Peter Wilby (former editor of the New Statesman) and film-maker John Pilger have all commented on our restraint and politeness. This is not normally something senior players in the rough and tumble world of journalism would focus on ? this is encouraging. For example, the Newsnight editor, Peter Barron, wrote on the BBC?s website last November: ?One of Media Lens? less ingratiating habits is to suggest to their readers that they contact me to complain about things we?ve done. They?re a website whose rather grand aim is to ?correct the distorted vision of the corporate media?. They prolifically let us know what they think of our coverage, mainly on Iraq, George Bush and the Middle East, from a Chomskyist perspective. In fact I rather like them. David Cromwell and David Edwards, who run the site, are unfailingly polite, their points are well-argued and sometimes they?re plain right.? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4426334.stm) Bain: One of the aspects of the perfection of effort is overcoming discouragement. Do you ever get discouraged and, if so, how do you overcome it? Media Lens: Discouragement is often a sign that a compassionate motivation has given way to some kind of self-centred concern ? perhaps anger, or frustration at the lack of some kind of reward (recognition or praise, for example). We also sometimes feel discouraged when we read the latest news indicating that climate change has already reached the point of no return ? that we are guaranteed environmental catastrophe on a massive scale regardless of any actions we now take. We try to put that out of our minds and just keep going. We tell ourselves that human beings are amazingly resourceful ? maybe we can do something unexpected. Maybe the lessons we?re receiving in terms of the consequences of selfishness can shatter our conceits about inherent existence, the exaggerated value of selfishness, the under-rated value of compassion, and so on. The wider point, though, to reiterate, is that discouragement is often a sign that compassion has given way to self-cherishing, particularly to anger. Then we need to reflect that our job is to work for the benefit of others ? anger is an indulgence neither they, nor we, can afford. Bain: Traditionally the perfection of mental stabilisation means meditation. In your work you quote stories of Buddhist meditators who spend years meditating on compassion. Would they be better off campaigning like you, or would you be better off meditating like them? Media Lens: We can?t think of a more remarkable or important achievement than being willing and able to meditate single-mindedly on compassion for years. In our opinion, people able to do this are a real cause for hope. If political activism has any meaning, it is because it is rooted in compassion. But that compassion must be rooted in an authentic, profound and living tradition ? something that requires the realisations of individuals able to travel to the far reaches of understanding and to return with the personally experienced truth of the power and importance of compassion. This is really vital work. No one able to devote themselves to this kind of thing should abandon it for the kind of work we?re doing. We see our work almost as an attempt to make use of the compassionate raw materials mined by these people. On the other hand, we feel we need to do as much as we can to develop compassion and wisdom in ourselves. There are two ways of doing this: first, our political activism should be rooted in compassion, it should be an expression of compassion, not something separate. Second, activism should be supported by a serious commitment to developing compassion and wisdom in ourselves through meditation, reading, discussion, study and so on. Should Buddhists spend more time in understanding the insitutionalisation of greed, hatred and ignorance in modern society? Stephen Batchelor writes: ?The contemporary social engagement of dharma practice is rooted in awareness of how self-centred confusion and craving can no longer be adequately understood only as psychological drives that manifest themselves in subjective states of anguish. We find these drives embodied in the very economic, military, and political structures that influence the lives of the majority of people on earth.? (Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs ? A Contemporary Guide To Awakening, Bloomsbury, 1997, p.112) We agree. While we understand that Dharma traditionally focuses on removing the obscuring afflictions in individuals, the problem today is that institutionalised psychological ?pollution? is making it extremely hard for individuals to even consider the need to work on such issues ? quite the reverse. As Noam Chomsky has observed, the corporate goal ?is to ensure that the human beings who [it is] interacting with, you and me, also become inhuman. You have to drive out of people?s heads natural sentiments like care about others, or sympathy, or solidarity? The ideal is to have individuals who are totally disassociated from one another, who don?t care about anyone else? whose conception of themselves, their sense of value, is ?Just how many created wants can I satisfy??? (Quoted, Joel Bakan, The Corporation, Constable, 2004, pp.134-135) How can that not be an issue for anyone who cares about human suffering? If it?s for strategic reasons ? Buddhists know they will be labelled as ?political agitators? and ?troublemakers? and targeted by the propaganda system ? that?s one thing. If the issue isn?t even acknowledged or discussed, that?s something else again. We can?t imagine how that can be justified. Bain: The perfection of wisdom means understanding the ultimate nature of reality. It is the supreme attainment of a Bodhisattva and can only be achieved by abandoning attachment to wealth, reputation, praise and pleasure. Although you are a writer and journalist, your Media Lens project means that you have little chance of ever making a living from or having a position of respect within the mainstream media. Is the sacrifice worth it? Media Lens: Remarkably, exactly the opposite is the case. You?ve probably heard this famous story: ?I used to hold up people by day and rob villages at night; but even so, food and clothes were scarce. Now that I practise Dharma, I am short of neither food nor clothing, and my enemies leave me in peace.? (Quoted, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, Pabongka Rinpoche, Wisdom Books, 1997, p.336) When we started Media Lens, we both had fledgling careers in the media ? we had both published books, had both published articles in a few mainstream newspapers and smaller magazines. It?s possible we could have developed careers as freelance writers or as media journalists. The question behind Media Lens was this: ?What happens if we no longer give any thought to being published, being paid, being respectable, being liked by commissioning editors? What happens if we just tell the truth as we see it about suffering and the causes of suffering?? It seemed to us few media analysts had ever really tried it ? people are generally hoping to make money from this kind of thing ? and before the internet they couldn?t reach anyone anyway. So we thought this would be a great experiment and it fitted perfectly with what is, for us, the absolutely central proposal of Mahayana Buddhism. Here are two versions that have inspired us greatly: ?Come to an understanding that no matter how it may seem, the root of all suffering is in actuality the desire to accomplish our own benefit and our own aims, and the root of all happiness is the relinquishment of that concern and the desire to accomplish the benefit of others.? (Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche) ?As much as you can, cherish all the beings ? human and animal ? around you with a good heart, and try to benefit them by giving them whatever help they need. Give them every single thing you can to make them happy: even a few sweet words or some interesting conversation that benefits their minds, that stops their problems and makes them happy. Use every opportunity, every action of your body, speech, and mind, to increase your virtue.? (Lama Zopa Rinpoche) We also had an increasing sense of outrage at the fact that journalists, ourselves included, would be willing to subordinate the welfare of others to career concern. How can we be willing to cooperate so meekly with this compromised, corporate system of media power when the consequences are so horrendous for living beings? It seemed so cruel, so narrow-minded ? even if the attempt was a laughable failure, it felt like a good idea to at least try to rebel against the selfishness in ourselves and as entrenched in the media system itself. The satisfaction of writing out of this motivation is incomparably greater than that of writing in hope of respectability, status and financial reward. Everything we send out is free, it?s intended as an act of generosity and support. The responses we?ve had have been amazing ? messages of love (there?s no other word to use) from all corners of the world. It?s been really astonishing. We?ve had criticism too, of course, but people are clearly very eager to read media analysis uncompromised by corporate control, career concerns, and the like. And of course the irony is that because they appreciate what we?re doing we have received financial support that has helped us keep going. On respect, the curious thing is we do seem to have won some respect in the mainstream. A very credible media insider told us that there is an undercurrent of impassioned dissent in the BBC ? journalists who are deeply unhappy at the way they are being used as a mouthpiece for government propaganda ? for whom Media Lens acts as ?a rallying point?. Journalists who care about honesty in the media, who recognise the massive constraints on freedom of speech, strongly support what we?re doing ? they have often sent us private messages of support. They are frightened to speak out, much less to be associated with us, but they do respect what we?re doing. One journalist working for the Observer (a paper we have heavily criticised), told us: ?Thanks very much. It goes without saying, many thanks for providing the inspiration/facts and for all your and DC?s [David Cromwell] good work. You are a constant needle, comfort and inspiration. Great stuff.? Bain: The ultimate reality understood by the perfection of wisdom is that everything is empty of inherent existence. In this discussion you have talked of the importance of ?shatter[ing] our conceits about inherent existence?. Yet the passage from Stephen Batchelor which you quote above implies that negative states of mind ?inhere? in our political and economic institutions, making them inherently bad. Traditionally, kindness is the main quality that Buddhists are encouraged to see in economic and political institutions ? or at least in the people who work in them ? because they provide us with vital services or because they give us problems which enable us to develop such virtues as non-attachment, patience and compassion. Do you think that our present economic and political system is inherently bad? Media Lens: The Canadian lawyer, Joel Bakan, describes how corporations are abstract concepts that are legally obliged to subordinate the welfare of people and planet to profit. Because charity and compassion are illegal under corporate law, except insofar as these increase profits, Bakan argues that corporations are essentially psychopathic in nature. Bakan quotes a key 19th century pronouncement by an English law lord, Lord Bowen: ??charity has no business to sit at boards of directors qua charity. There is, however, a kind of charitable dealing which is for the interest of those who practise it, and to that extent and in that garb (I admit not a very philanthropic garb) charity may sit at the board, but for no other purpose?. (Lord Bowen, quoted, Bakan, The Corporation, Constable, 2004, pp.38-39) According to The Body Shop founder, Anita Roddick, the corporation ?stops people from having a sense of empathy with the human condition?; it ?separate[s] us from who we are? The language of business is not the language of the soul or the language of humanity. It?s a language of indifference; it?s a language of separation, of secrecy, of hierarchy?. (Ibid, pp.55-56) So what should our response be? Insofar as this system benefits us, we can recognise its kindness, as you say. Insofar as it harms us, we can practice patience. This isn?t so hard. It is far easier to understand that a corporation is an abstract, non-inherently existent entity than it is to understand the same of an individual person. It?s clear that a corporation is just a label applied to a large number of buildings, constantly changing personnel, bank accounts, business principles and so on. We know General Motors isn?t a person with a personality that we can hate. People might hate the chairman or CEO ? although their hands are tied by shareholders, corporate law, and so on ? but we can?t hate a label. But insofar as the corporation is harming others we should work with all our might to prevent that harm. We need to raise awareness amongst the public of the extraordinary costs of the unlimited pursuit of corporate greed for people and planet. We need to work to rein in the worst destructiveness and then work to reform the political and economic systems that make this possible. This means democratic movements rooted in compassion and respect for life, movements that promote freedom, equality and justice. All of this should be rooted in compassion for suffering, not anger. Our guide in reforming the system can be our awareness that selfish greed is inherently harmful. We need only reflect that corporate law enshrines not just greed, but infinite, unrestrained greed as a legal principle that must not be compromised. This is the cause of many of the problems facing us today. The root of that, in turn, is that selfish individuals have created these laws to protect their interests. As ever, positive change begins with a recognition of the negative consequences of self-cherishing and the benefits of caring for others.

Afghanistan – a hidden catastrophe
6 Jul 2008
When it is mentioned at all, the war in Afghanistan is presented as a humanitarian, nation-building operation. The reality is that the occupation is itself creating a humanitarian disaster. In the summer of 2007 the International Committee of the Red Cross reported that the situation in Afghanistan was becoming desperate: ?Civilians suffer horribly from mounting threats to their security, such as increasing numbers of roadside bombs and suicide attacks, and regular aerial bombing raids?Thousands of people have fled their homes and are continuing to move in search of safer areas?. The Red Cross report said that the local population was suffering particularly badly in the south where the fighting has been heaviest and where most British troops are based. Afghanistan is now one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world. It stands at 174 out of the 178 countries on the UN?s world development index. More than one third of children suffer malnutrition. Seven per cent of under-fives die of hunger. Life expectancy is 44, health care is non-existent for the majority of Afghans and the country has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. The authoritative Senlis report says that only two countries in the world have worse child poverty rates and that poverty and fighting have led to the uncontrolled spread of refugee camps across the country. The report blames this situation directly on the NATO forces? war against anti-government groups which has ?rendered reconstruction efforts in the area obsolete? and on the shameful level of aid delivered ?notwithstanding proclamations of commitments towards the people?. In the first year of occupation the US promised Afghanistan 1/ 40th of the aid promised to Iraq in 2003. Very little even of that has been delivered. Only 8 billion dollars of the 20 billion promised by the international community has materialised. All the indications are that over the last year the level of fighting has increased dramatically. There are now nearly twice as many foreign troops in Afghanistan as there were in 2006, and Oxfam estimates that last year therewere four times as many aerial bombing raids on Afghanistan as Iraq. But a series of official reports out in January 2008 show that the military strategy is not working and that Afghanistan is on its way to becoming a failed state. It is not surprising that opposition to the occupation is growing. The Senlis report states that the Taliban has ?increasing control of several parts of southern, south eastern and western Afghanistan?. In the past, it says, the Taliban was finding it difficult to retain control of terrain it had conquered. ?That situation has now changed?. Anti-occupation forces now control much of Afghanistan?s key infrastructure. They regularly disrupt the ring road from Kabul to Herat, and have the capacity to close the other main roads to the capital. They run electricity substations in three key districts in Helmand, effectively giving themcontrol over the region?s power supply. The resistance is not mainly inspired by religion. It is fuelled by a mixture of social and economic grievances which include the number of civilian deaths caused by the occupiers, lack of aid, forced crop eradication, lack of public services and the perception that the Karzai government is a puppet regime. No wonder that even US appointee, President Karzai, has recently criticised the occupation and refused to back Paddy Ashdown as ?Viceroy?. Military commanders from Britain and the US have been warning it will take decades to ?pacify? Afghanistan. The disaster that is Iraq has made some semblance of success in Afghanistan vital for the western powers. But the truth is that the mission here too is failing, and recognition of failure is causing a crisis in NATO. Canada has served notice it will withdraw its troops unless there are significant reinforcements, and in defiance of the US, Germany has refused to send its troops to the combat zones in the south. In the meantime the occupation causes untold suffering for the Afghan people. It is time for the troops to leave.

The global warming deniers
6 Jul 2008
I am finding it increasingly difficult to maintain my optimism that we can stabilise global temperature increases below the ?danger level? of 2C. First, there is no sign that emissions are being reduced; rather, the opposite is happening. Second, it is becoming clear that the danger level for temperature increase is a good deal lower than 2C. The Arctic Sea ice cover is already approaching a new low. The new topic of speculation is not whether the Arctic ice will disappear completely in the summer months by 2080, but whether this will happen by 2018. An ice-free North Pole will have a significant effect on the planet?s energy balance, given the important role this huge white ?mirror? plays in reflecting incoming solar radiation. Once it is gone, the warming process can only speed up further. Already, a new study suggests that an ice-free Arctic Ocean will dramatically increase warming in surrounding land areas, accelerating the degradation of permafrost and resulting in huge releases of carbon and methane ? driving yet more warming. Setting a danger level of 2C, as the UK and EU have done, now looks dangerously optimistic. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported last year that emissions cuts within a decade could still keep temperature hikes below 2C. But global emissions are rising year on year, not falling. Many climate models are underpinned by an assumption of 1.5 per cent increases annually in carbon releases. Instead, they have been running at more than 2 per cent. In the words of the Tyndall Centre scientist Kevin Anderson: ?Since 2000 the world has gone ballistic in terms of carbon emissions.? Anderson has recently revised his projections for climate change and now thinks that the ?best we can expect? is stab ilising atmospheric concentrations at 650 parts per million CO2 equivalent, equating to warming of about 4C. He suggests we ?mitigate for 2, but adapt for 4?. Adapting to 4C of warming would be quite a challenge. With this level of temperature change, we can expect a huge increase in drought-prone zones, a mass extinction of half or more of the life on earth, hundreds of millions of refugees from areas deprived of fresh water or inundated by rising seas, and widespread starvation due to food and water shortages. The Stockholm Network?s Carbon Scenarios report (which I helped draft) reaches a similar conclusion, projecting a warming of nearly 5C if global policy on climate continues to fail. Against this terrifying backdrop, the denial lobby flourishes, its success almost calling into question the capacity of mankind for reasoned thought. Nigel Lawson?s dreadful book, laughably entitled An Appeal to Reason, has been riding high in the sales charts and is only one of several denialist tomes on global warming. The last time I looked, four out of five of Amazon?s top sellers on climate were penned by deniers. And these are not just views from the fringe. A MORI poll reported by the Observer last month found six out of ten people think, wrongly, that ?many scientific experts? disagree on whether human beings are causing climate change. Four out of ten people asked believed that the impact had been exaggerated. Many climate-change sceptics like to think they are proudly independent people, refusing to be cowed by UN-sponsored orthodoxy from the IPCC. In fact, the arguments of climate sceptics have largely been moulded by a far more sinister force ? the US-based conservative think tanks. A recent academic survey of environmentally sceptical books found that 92 per cent were linked with these think tanks, which include the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Since the early 1990s, these and other industry-funded front groups have been leading an anti-environmental backlash, changing the tenor of the political debate on environmental issues and bombarding the media and the public with disinformation. The authors of the study, published in the June edition of a journal called Environmental Politics, argue that, far from being a true grass-roots movement, ?environmental scepticism is an elite- driven reaction to global environmentalism, organised by core actors within the conservative movement?. The ?self-portrayal of sceptics as marginalised ?Davids? battling the powerful ?Goliath? of environmentalists and environmental scientists is a charade?, given that the ?sceptics are supported by politically powerful conservative think tanks funded by wealthy foundations and corporations?. Next time someone insists global warming isn?t happening, ask yourself where their views come from ? and whose interests they serve.

Here’s the Thing
6 Jul 2008
No one ever asked me to sign the social contract. I don’t remember being presented with a dotted line and a pen. Yet here I am, subject to the will of a state whose checks and balances are increasingly unchecked and unbalanced, and whose “democratic” machinery is so clogged with patronage and power that my chances of influencing it are close to zero. The existence of the “social contract“ is the great liberal myth under which we still labour. The theory is that we, as individuals, allow the state to curtail some of our liberties and in return, the state protects us from harm and uses its collective strength to advance society as a whole. It’s a nice theory, but it has a rather obvious flaw. A genuine contract is an agreement signed willingly by two consenting parties. The social contract, by contrast, is something we are coerced into simply by dint of being born. Try opting out of it in today’s Britain and see how far it gets you; ask a gypsy or a traveller how long you’ll last if you try living a life that doesn’t fit with society’s demands. The reality of modern Britain is that the freedom of individuals is increasingly constrained by the state. In turn, the freedom of the state is constrained by an all-pervasive global capitalism. The result is that the state controls the lives of its citizens in order to serve the interests of corporations. We now live in a country in which hospitals are owned by supermarkets, schools are run by businessmen and corporations own and police entire city centres. The purpose of our education system is to turn our children into cogs in the corporate machine, and there can be no nobler national aspiration for UK PLC than Remaining Competitive In The Global Economy. In times like this, the social contract becomes little more than a flimsy veil, failing to hide the naked power behind it. In theory, we live in a liberal democracy. In practice we are under the thumb of what William Cobbett memorably called “the Thing” ? a great, lurking, self-serving power. Today’s Thing is a hydra with two heads ? corporation and state ? and both have the same message for us: behave yourself, take out a loan, go shopping, keep the economy afloat. Your duty is not to be alert, active citizens but passive, obedient consumers. Oh, and if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide. We are becoming a nation of enforced conformity. In this context, liberty means the freedom simply to be yourself. The freedom to go about your business without being watched by cameras; the freedom to make merry or make trouble on your own streets; the freedom to pursue alternatives to the consumer economy. It also means freedom from coercion: freedom from databases, identity cards, iris scans, fingerprints, random searches, imprisonment without trial or justification. It means, above all, having the freedom, and the power, to say no to the Thing.

Ending Poverty in a Carbon Constrained World
6 Jul 2008
Rapid Transition and New Development Directions Several years ago the International Red Cross sent me on behalf the World Disasters Report to assess the early impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations. What I saw in Tuvalu, in the South Pacific, and learned from other small island states, about being resilient in the face of an unpredictable and extreme climate, may hold lessons now for how many millions more can withstand the upheaval of global warming on our small island planet. Tuvalu is living a uniquely modern paradox. It won the lottery of the internet age being awarded the domain name ‘.tv.’ Allegedly it has a bigger delegation in Los Angeles to sell rights, than it has here at the UN to protect its political interests. But, lying just a few metres above sea level, Tuvalu is in acute danger of losing its real home, just as it benefits from its new, virtual one. We can learn a lot from the mere fact that island communities like this survived for so long on remote shards of land, exposed to the full force and vagaries of nature To do so, first they had to respect their obvious environmental limits. Next they evolved resilient local economies that helped them cope with extreme and unpredictable weather. These were, of necessity, based on reciprocity, sharing and co-operation, and not unlimited growth fed by individualistic, beggar-thy-neighbour competition. Today, as collectively we face and exceed the limits of the earth’s bio-capacity, we are challenged at the global level to learn in a few short years, lessons that such small communities often took millennia to arrive at. Our task is enormously complicated by the intricate interdependence of the modern global economy, the unbalanced distribution of power and benefits within it, and a pace of international decision making that, until the ice started to melt so rapidly, I would have described as glacially slow. Fortunately there is much that we already do know to guide our actions, drawing on decades of experience in dozens of countries and through thousands of community based organisations around the world. For example, the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, a coalition of leading NGOS based in the UK, that we helped to form, spelt out in a series of reports looking in detail at different global regions, how climate change, if unchecked, stands not only to block further progress on the Millennium Development Goals, but to reverse gains hard won over many years. Our conclusion was that irreversible global warming, which appears perilously close, would mean not just greater hardship for millions, but the end of development as we have understood it for the last half a century. One severe drought in Australia has already partly triggered world-wide food shortages and high and rising prices, creating shocks that ripple from the High Street in Britain to the markets of Dhaka and Port au Prince. And the UK’s official Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, recently concluded based on a moderate scenario for change, that the percentage of the Earth’s land surface prone to extreme drought having already trebled to three per cent in less than a decade, will rise to fully one third by 2090, with droughts also longer in duration. More worrying still, the edge of the climate cliff is not clearly visible. Scientists such as NASA’s James Hansen believe we may already be tipping over. This means not just stabilising atmospheric greenhouse gases, but reducing them, with unimagined implications for the global economy. Oddly-named ‘positive environmental feedbacks’ are volatile, hard to predict and may be terrifyingly sudden. So we must act on precaution and the best estimates available. Because the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the biosphere we have no choice but to act, using precaution and the best information available. An individual may recover from financial bankruptcy, but if we allow our ecological debts to bankrupt a climate conducive to human civilisation, geological history shows that it could take tens of thousands of years to be restored if, indeed, it ever is. We already know that people living in poverty are hit first and worst by global warming. This and the challenge of reducing poverty in a carbon constrained world calls for a new development model which is climate proof and climate friendly. From now on, all decisions will need to be scrutinised for whether they will increase or decrease vulnerability to climate change. We must look through the lenses of building resilience at the community level, and reducing risk. And, it is the communities at risk who must shape our plans. Parallel to the approach of the IPCC, the recent report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology showed that a massive shift of support to small scale farmers using a diverse range of agro-ecological methods would be one of the most efficient ways to build resilience, inoculate against food crises, and insure against increasingly hostile weather patterns. Community-based coping strategies such as the use of seed banks, water management, vulnerability mapping, storm and flood protection that works with the local environment, and the conservation of forests and other ecosystems – all represent effective ways for threatened communities to adapt. If replicated and scaled-up, small-scale renewable energy projects promoted by governments and community groups can help both to tackle poverty and reduce climate change. But this needs political commitment, significant new funds from governments and a major shift in priorities for energy lending by the World Bank and other development bodies. There is no either/or approach possible; the world must meet both its commitments to achieve the MDGs and tackle climate change. The two are inextricably linked. Here we crash headlong into another, equally large problem. It is clear that conventional economic growth will happen in poor countries as a consequence of effective poverty reduction. But at a global level, the policies designed to pursue growth have become a mask for making the rich, richer, whilst leaving the poor with few benefits and abandoned to deal with growth’s environmental consequences. During the 1980s – what was called lost decade of development – from every $100 worth of global economic growth, around $2.20 found its way to people living below the absolute poverty line. A decade later that had shrunk to just $0.60c, and the actual mean income of those living under $1 per day in Africa also fell. There has been, in effect, a sort of ‘flood-up’ of wealth from poor to rich, rather than a ‘trickle-down.’ It means, perversely, that for the poor to get slightly less poor, the rich have to get very much richer, implying patterns of consumption which, in a world facing climate change, cannot be sustained. It now takes around $166 worth of global growth – made up of all those energy-hungry giant flat screen TVs and sports utility vehicles – to generate a single dollar of poverty reduction for people in absolute poverty, compared with just $45 dollars in the 1980s. Earnings of between $3 and $4 per day is the approximate level at which the strong link between income and life expectancy breaks down. So, let us ask what would happen if we agreed $3 per day as the minimum level of income to escape absolute poverty? Using the ecological footprint measure, if the whole world wished to consume at the level of the United States – a consumption pattern which has been fuelled, incidentally, by the credit binge which led to the current economic crisis – we would need, conservatively, over 5 planets like earth to support them. But, under the current pattern of unequally distributed benefits from growth, to lift everyone in the world onto a modest $3 per day, would require the resources of around 15 planets like ours. Where, you might ask, will the other 14 come from? To tackle poverty in a carbon constrained world, then, we need a new development model, based on better measures of progress, and a shift from relying on unequal global growth to serious redistribution. If we think of the planet as a cake, we can slice it differently, but we surely cannot bake a new one. Climate change is not the only reason that we have to learn to live with far fewer fossil fuels. Development must also contend with the high and rising price of oil, and the imminent global peak and long decline of oil production. What, if any, guides do we have to surviving these multiple shocks? One country, much maligned, provides a glimpse of a near future that many more may face. Almost like a laboratory example, positioned on the flight path of the annual Hurricane season, since 1990 Cuba has lived through the economic and environmental shocks that climate change and peak oil hold in store for the rest of the world. The sudden loss of cheap Soviet oil and its economic isolation were so extreme at the end of the cold war, and its reaction to the shock was so contrary to orthodox approaches, and relatively successful, that it was dubbed in Washington the ‘anti-model.’ Then oil imports dropped by over half. The use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers dropped by 80 percent. The availability of basic food staples like wheat and other grains fell by half and, overall, the average Cuban’s calorie intake fell by over one third in around five years. But, serious and long-term investment in science, engineering, health, education, plus land redistribution, reduced inequality and research into low-input ecological farming techniques, meant the country had a strong social fabric and the capacity to act. At the heart of the transition after 1990 was the success of small farms, and urban farms and gardens. Immediate crisis was averted by food programmes that targeted the most vulnerable people, the old, young, pregnant women and young mothers, and a rationing programme that guaranteed a minimum amount of food to everyone. Soon, half the food consumed in the capital, Havana, was grown in the city’s own gardens and, overall, urban gardens provide 60 percent of the vegetables eaten in Cuba. The threat of serious food shortages was overcome within five years. Time magazine recently called for a ‘War on Climate Change,’ and, interestingly, Cuba’s experience echoed what America achieved in a more distant time of hardship during World War II. Then Eleanor Roosevelt led the ‘victory gardening movement’ to produce between 30-40 percent of vegetables for domestic consumption, and public education campaigns warned that wasting fuel was like fighting for the enemy. Cuba demonstrated it is possible to feed a population under extreme economic stress with very few fossil fuel, but there were other surprises too. As calorie intake fell by more than one third, of necessity the proportion of physically active adults more than doubled and obesity halved. Between 1997-2002, deaths attributed to diabetes halved, coronary heart disease fell by 35 percent, and strokes and other causes by around one fifth. The approach was dubbed the ‘anti-model’ because it was both highly managed and led by communities, it focused on meeting domestic needs rather than exports, was largely organic and built on the success of small farms. The same countrys approach to disaster preparedness and management is also instructive. Compared to the deaths and destruction in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, when Hurricane Michelle hit Cuba in 2001 only 5 lives were lost, and recovery was quick. It was due to proper planning, and a collective approach managed by government, but owned at the local level. Disasters expert Dr Ben Wisner commented on the evacuation of 700,000 of Cuba’s 11 million population, ‘This is quite a feat given Cuba’s dilapidated fleet of vehicles, fuel shortage and poor road system.’ At least one analyst suggests that the Cuban experiment, ‘may hold many of the keys to the future survival of civilisation.’ Currently, according to our calculations, in a given calendar year the world as a whole goes into ecological debt around October 7th – by which time we have consumed more and produced more waste than ecosystems can deal with. The results are seen in climate change, oceans emptied of fish, and desertification. Forty years ago Robert Kennedy said that economic growth measured everything apart from that which really matters. But it is possible to assess if we are achieving human development whilst living within our environmental means. nef’s own ‘Happy Planet Index’, compares the relative success of nations at delivering long life expectancy and high levels of well being, compared to their size of ecological footprint. The results reveal many middle income countries performing well, with good life expectancy and well-being, and relatively low footprints. Strikingly, some of the best performers are small island states. Somehow, they have worked together to produce more convivial communities, whilst respecting environmental limits. The UN faces huge challenges. Not least is how to recognise and protect the large and growing number of people we can expect to be displaced in a warming world. The climate refugee crisis will dwarf that of political refugees. What will happen to the nationhood and economic areas of countries that could disappear entirely, like Tuvalu? How can we change our locked-in thinking about economic development, and reorganise around the principles of resilience, social justice, sufficiency, ecological efficiency, and the capacity to adapt? We might begin by asking, as acid tests: Will what we do make people more or less vulnerable? Will it move us toward truly sustainable, one-planet-living? Will it move us fast enough to prevent irreversible, catastrophic climate change? When the people of Tuvalu first encountered Europeans in the 19th century, they gave them the name palangi. Victorian travellers translated the word to mean “heaven bursters,” a reference to their ship’s guns. Now, some of our lifestyles truly threaten to burst the heavens. At the very least, to achieve poverty reduction in world threatened by climate change, we know that rich countries must radically cut their own consumption to free-up the environmental space in which others can pursue, as a first step, the Millennium Development Goals. The good news is that we now know from the literature on human well-being, that making the rich, richer does nothing to increase their life satisfaction. On the contrary, numerous studies confirm that once your basic needs are met, you are just as likely to have high life satisfaction, whether your ecological footprint is large or small. My conclusion is that a new development model is needed as much, if not more, in countries like Britain and the US as the majority world. We have to demonstrate that good lives do not have to cost the earth. Impassable ecological obstacles lie on the path down which we chase the shadows of over-consumption to deliver our well-being, expecting the poor to be grateful for and crumbs that fall from our plates. The good news is that another way is not only possible, as the philosopher A.C. Grayling writes, it is better, richer and more enduring. Andrew Simms is policy director and head of the climate change programme at nef (the new economics foundation). This article is from a speech he gave to the UN ECOSOC special session on climate change and the MDGS, New York, 2 May 2008.

The Bomb Stops Here
5 Jul 2008
?When the bomb dropped on Hiroshima I was one kilometre from the explosion. I was 14. Now I?m 77 ? a lucky number in Japan.? It?s Easter Monday, and I?m listening to Yushio Sato?s story in the Great British drizzle, outside Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment. ?My mother and sister died in the months following,? he tells the crowd. ?My brother and I survived ? but we have had many diseases. 26 years after the explosion, I had an operation to remove half my stomach because of cancer. My brother died of liver cancer. Now I am the only survivor of my family.? Around 5,000 of us have gathered at our country?s nuke factory to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first protest march from London to Aldermaston. The 1958 march was a defining moment in the history of the peace movement. It marked the founding of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the launch of the iconic peace symbol, and the beginning of annual Aldermaston marches which ? at their height in the 1960s ? attracted hundreds of thousands of people. But this isn?t just a symbolic event. We are here to protest about what?s happening today. The British Government is spending $11 billion developing Aldermaston in order to research, build and test a new generation of nuclear weapons ? including ?mini-nukes? intended for actual use in the battlefield. After we have all spread out to surround the base and declare to the slightly soggy media that ?the bomb stops here?, I decide to take a stroll around the perimeter fence. It turns out to be an eight kilometre hike. The place is vast, and the scale of new construction work staggering. I?ve always found it hard to get my head around the idea that my country even possesses weapons of such indiscriminate and cataclysmic destructive power ? let alone that we are prepared to use them. Surely the suffering of Yushio Sato and his family, and the hundreds of thousands of Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims, should have been enough to shock the world into banning the atom bomb before it could be used again? Apparently not. Political leaders express their commitment to nuclear disarmament on a regular basis. But my trip to Aldermaston has provided a grim dose of reality. As I gaze through the fence at the shiny new dome built to house ?Orion? ? a super-powerful laser that will simulate the conditions of a nuclear explosion so that the British Government can bypass the pesky Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ? it becomes quite obvious that, behind the rhetoric, maintaining our grotesque ?deterrent? decades into the future is the real plan. So it has come as a welcome surprise to find that disarmament campaigners are more optimistic than they have been in years. In fact, circumstances have converged to create a window of opportunity to begin ridding the world of nuclear weapons for good. The question is whether we can seize the moment. A new kind of madness Before I started working on this magazine, nukes weren?t very high up my list of things to be worried about. Like acne and exams, fretting over atomic armageddon seemed to belong to a bygone era. The fact that the NI hasn?t done a magazine on nuclear weapons since the 1980s shows I?m not the only one to have deprioritized the nuclear threat. Back then, the Cold War was at its height. NATO and the Warsaw Pact were deploying 65,000 nukes, sucking up 85 per cent of the world?s military expenditure. One NI focused on how to break the ?suicide pact? of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) in which the US and USSR were locked in a state of common vulnerability. Military strategists at the time argued that MAD helped keep the peace, but in fact it was having the opposite effect, fuelling a potentially apocalyptic arms race which was being played out through proxy wars all over the Majority World. In the 1990s the Cold War melted away, and stockpiles were scaled back substantially. The world stepped back from the brink and breathed a sigh of relief. The NI started laying into globalization instead. However, in recent years we?ve entered a frightening new phase of nuclear proliferation, and the rules have changed. It?s a new kind of madness. Since Hiroshima, the bomb has been a building-block of empire: every US President has threatened to nuke at least one country, ignoring arms control treaties to continue expanding its arsenal. But now the US is the sole superpower, for the time being. It has attained a state of nuclear supremacy, striving for ?full spectrum dominance? whereby it can destroy any country without fear of nuclear retaliation: and thus rule the world. The 21st century has so far been marked by jaw-dropping hypocrisy, with Bush and his war poodle Blair outraged at the very idea of other countries developing their own nuclear capability; and in the case of Iraq, even using non-existent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as an excuse to invade and occupy. The US and Britain are not alone in flouting their disarmament commitments. All the other major nuclear weapons states are busy ?modernizing? their nukes, although both Russia and China have been more than a little provoked by Bush?s aggressive push for a ?Son of Star Wars? ballistic missile defence system that looks suspiciously like it?s aimed at them. Since the end of the Cold War, despite ? or rather, because of ? the refusal of states to disarm, we have seen a new phenomenon: the rise of the ?nuclear poor?. A Russian entrepreneur making megabucks out of the nuke trade describes how ?at some point this change occurred. The great powers were stuck with arsenals they could not use, and nuclear weapons became the weapons of the poor.?1 India and Pakistan built themselves the bomb in the late 1990s, and North Korea enraged its southern neighbour with a test in 2006. At least 13 nations have the ability to ?go nuclear? in the next decade, including Algeria, Indonesia, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Many more could soon join them as nuclear energy spreads across the world, providing access to bomb-making technology. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, expressed exasperation last February over the actions of the ?big boys? which are encouraging poorer countries to want their own weapons. ?Any country with an average infrastructure can develop a nuclear warhead. Iran is just one example of the new phenomenon of becoming ?nuclear weapon capable?: you don?t really need to have an actual weapon. It?s enough to buy yourself an insurance policy by developing the capability and then sitting on it. But let us not kid ourselves. Ninety per cent of it is insurance, because the big boys continue to say ?we need nuclear weapons but it is bad for you to have them?. Nuclear weapon states have to lead by example.? As if the prospect of a multi-polar nuclear world weren?t disquieting enough, it?s conceivable that terrorist groups might get their hands on the technology to build and detonate some kind of nuclear device. ElBaradei can confirm 150 cases a year of illicit trafficking in nuclear materials: ?But a lot of material stolen has never been recovered and a lot of the material recovered has never been reported stolen. This system leaves a lot to be desired.?2 Seismic shifts So what possible reason can anti-nuclear activists have to be so upbeat? Well, quite aside from the moral issues, nuclear deterrence is a laughable dogma these days. A journalist who recently went on a tour round a Trident nuclear submarine asked who the missiles are pointed at. ?Nobody,? came the answer. So who is the enemy? ?We don?t have an enemy. It?s a deterrent.?3 But the real security threats for countries like Britain cannot be deterred by the promise of a nuclear attack. Terrorism, climate change, global economic meltdown ? however many ballistic missiles you?ve got, they won?t help. Instead, as Commander Robert Green, now retired from the Royal Navy, summarizes: ?Weapons stimulate hostility, create instability, promote proliferation and generate an arms race. They are dirty and poisonous and the ultimate virility symbol. They represent terrorist logic on the grandest scale imaginable.?4 And they?re incredibly expensive to maintain. Many countries agree with this analysis, perhaps even some nuclear states, who are realizing that having nuclear weapons makes them more, not less vulnerable. There is growing support in the international community for a Nuclear Weapons Convention that would provide a framework and timetable for disarmament ? a ?palpable buzz about reaching a tipping point, where disarmament becomes respectable and achievable?, reports expert and activist Rebecca Johnson.5 It?s a matter of bringing the big boys on board ? and this is just starting to look possible. In the US, a seismic shift in attitude is taking place. While the Bush administration has continued to love the bomb, many mainstream military strategists have had a startling change of heart, epitomized by an open letter to the Wall Street Journal in January. Entitled ?Toward a nuclear-free world?, it is signed by four notorious Cold Warriors: two former Secretaries of State (George Shultz and Henry Kissinger); a former Secretary of Defense (William J Perry) and a retired Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (Sam Nunn). They argue that nuclear weapons are fuelling insecurity, which is in no-one?s interest, and that the US and Russia must take the lead in disarming. Congress has vetoed many of Bush?s bids for new spending on nukes, and US warmongering in the Middle East has never been so unpopular. In the Presidential primaries, Barack Obama broke with the tradition of always keeping the ultimate threat up your sleeve by stating: ?it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance? in Afghanistan or Pakistan ? to snorts of derision from Hillary ?I?d-obliterate-Iran? Clinton. Using such weapons in situations involving civilians is ?not on the table,? he continued, and has since pledged to work towards elimination.6 If he wins the Democratic nomination, and then the election, he could turn out to be the most pro-disarmament President of all time. Of course, the motives of Kissinger et al are by no means pure. They partly spring from a hawkish calculation that a world bristling with other countries? nukes is dangerous for the US, and prevents it from the total military domination it could otherwise be enjoying. Nevertheless, it?s an extraordinary volte-face and opens up a political space for campaigners that there has never been before. In Britain, campaigning against Trident has reached a pivotal moment. The fleet of nuclear submarines is based in Scotland, which now has its own Parliament. In 2007, against a backdrop of year-long anti-nuke direct action, the Scottish National Party came to power. They don?t want their country to host Britain?s bombs anymore, and 70 per cent of the Scottish public agree. A parliamentary coalition has been set up to explore legal options, such as using health, safety and environmental legislation to whack Westminster with a massive fine every time a convoy carrying warheads up from Aldermaston crosses the border. Finding a new home for Trident would be a headache of ballistic proportions for the British Government, as their attempts to upgrade their WMDs may also prove to be. Blair won a preliminary vote last year to replace Trident, but it caused the biggest MP rebellion since the Iraq war, and another vote will be needed for the final go-ahead. In the meantime, campaigners say a colossal defence spending crunch is looming, and the rhetoric on disarmament coming out of Gordon Brown?s Government is the most positive they?ve ever heard. Britain?s submarines are now the weakest link in the nuclear chain. Profits of doom The ball is clearly in the court of the US and Britain to start serious negotiations to eradicate nukes completely. We have perhaps a handful of years before nuclear weapons spread to more countries and are used in anger once again. But let?s not be nave: the barriers in our way are enormous. Perhaps the most formidable is the so-called military-industrial complex: a term coined in 1961 by a disparaging President Eisenhower to describe the unholy matrimony of war-making and money-making. Its influence helps explain why the US now spends a third more on nuclear weapons, in real terms, than the Cold War average. The current US plan for massive investment in new facilities and warheads is known as ?Complex Transformation?. William D Hartung, a specialist in the politics and economics of military spending, argues that it has ?more to do with bailing out the nuclear weapons industry? than anything else.7 We?re talking seriously big money: well over $200 billion over the next two decades. The main beneficiaries will be eight companies ? including Bechtel and Lockheed Martin ? who between them received $11 billion in US Government nuclear contracts in 2005. It?s surely no coincidence that these same eight spent $15.3 million on lobbying in 2006 alone.8 The nuclear industry?s talent for persuading politicians to keep on spending is not confined to the US. The reason the Trident replacement vote was rushed through the British Parliament was that the main beneficiary ? arms company BAE Systems ? went into lobbying overdrive. Most of it was behind the scenes, but Murray Easton, BAE?s Submarines Managing Director, is on record as warning the Parliamentary Defence Select Committee that any delay in replacing Trident would have ?a significant impact? on BAE?s ability to develop and build nuclear subs for Britain in the future. Design and drafting staff would have nothing to do all day, he complained, and so would no doubt leave the sector, taking their skills with them forever.9 While this may sound, to some, like a perfect opportunity to diversify British industry away from arms, to my Government it sounded like an order. And when BAE tells them to do something, they do it ? as evidenced by Blair?s illegal suspension of a bribery investigation into a BAE arms deal with Saudi Arabia. While the case against nuclear weapons may seem watertight, countering the influence of the ?defence? industry will require massive popular pressure. This is where a second problem kicks in: public apathy. The anti-nuke movement is nowhere near the size it reached in its heyday, despite including some of the most dedicated and heroic activists I have ever encountered. People have been lulled into a false sense of security, believing that nukes are no longer a threat. CND were pleased with a turnout of 5,000 at Aldermaston, but much larger mobilizations are going to be necessary to burst the tyres of this military juggernaught. A final, escalating problem is the rapid spread of nuclear energy, which is being erroneously touted as a ?clean? alternative to fossil fuels. Ban-the-bomb campaigners are split on this issue so tend to keep out of the debate, with damaging consequences for the movement. Seizing the moment If the moral case were enough, nuclear weapons would have been banned long ago. It?s time for a more strategic approach that makes the triple obstacles of military-industrial power, public apathy and the spread of atomic energy work to the advantage of the anti-nuke movement. We should be linking the abolition of nuclear weapons to the fight against climate change. Nuclear energy is a dangerous diversion, and nuclear weapons are worse than useless against the multiple insecurities that global warming will unleash. By uniting the two causes, a case could be made for channelling the piles of public money currently being blown on building bombs into financing large-scale changes to cut greenhouse gases and build a safer future. Let?s take Britain as an example. Trident replacement will cost around $154 billion over the next three decades. Why not use that money to finance a wholesale shift to renewable energy? Britain could supply 50 per cent of its energy from offshore wave and wind power by 2030 by diverting funds and skills directly from nuclear submarine manufacturing.10 A mere 1.3 billion Trident bucks a year would fund the transition from car-dependent gridlock to an affordable nationwide public transport system.11 Junking nukes would go a long way towards meeting the estimated $25.4 billion a year cost of helping every British household become low carbon, cutting overall emissions by 80 per cent.12 This ?two birds with one stone? approach could help revitalize an ageing peace movement. It could bring the genuine threats posed by nuclear weapons to the attention of a new audience of activists, and push it up the agenda of an environmental movement growing in strength. It makes a case for diverting funding from the bomb that even the most trigger-happy politician may find compelling ? especially when the challenge of publicly financing major carbon-reduction infrastructure projects during an economic recession begins to bite? It?s time to seize the moment. There are fewer and fewer survivors like Yushio Sato left to remind us of the horror humans can now unleash upon each other. We?ve never been good at learning from history and the signs point towards a whole new generation experiencing a nuclear attack first hand in the not too distant future. This struggle is too important to leave to the committed few. It?s up to all of us to grab the window of opportunity we?ve been given and ban the bomb, before the shutters slam back down, for good. 1. William Langewiesche, The Atomic Bazaar: the rise of the nuclear poor, Penguin, 2007 2. Mohamed ElBaradei, speech at the 44th Munich Conference on Security Policy, 9 February 2008, reported by Press TV 3. Sam Alexandroni, ?The 365 ways to say no?, New Statesman, 26 February 2007 4. Spoken at CND?s ?Global summit for a nuclear weapon-free world?, London, 16 February 2008 5. Rebecca Johnson, ?Time to outlaw the use of nuclear weapons?, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue No. 87, Spring 2008 6. Anne E. Kornblut, ?Clinton demurs on Obama?s nuclear stance?, Washington Post, 3 August 2007 7. William D Hartung, ?Nuclear bailout: a critique of the Department of Energy?s plans for a new nuclear weapons complex?, New America Foundation, 25 March 2008 8. William D Hartung and Frida Berrigan, ?Complex 2030: the costs and consequences of the plan to build a new generation of nuclear weapons?, World Policy Institute, April 2007 9. BAE Systems, ?Investor brief ? November 2006?, http://tinyurl.com/6jce2r/ 10. Steven Schofield, ?Oceans of work: arms conversion revisited?, British American Security Information Council (BASIC), 27 January 2007 11. Simon Bullock, Tony Bosworth and Vicky Cann, ?Way to go ? paying for better transport?, May 2004, http://tinyurl.com/yu8em5 12. Brenda Boardman, ?Home Truths: a low carbon strategy to reduce UK housing emissions by 80% by 2050?, University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute, November 2007

Empire of the Vanities
5 Jul 2008
An outrageous story of greed, lust and structural adjustment In the run up to the annual meet and greet by world leaders (and ensuing mass insurrection on the other side of the police lines) at the G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan, it?s time we took another look at the Group of Eight (the USA, UK, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, Japan and Russia). The G8 has been top of activists? hit lists since the ’90s when the leaders of the world lorded it over the planet, playing the world?s population like puppets on its strings through the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank, keeping the deck of international power and capital firmly stacked in favour of the rich. The G8 is sometimes known as the G7 plus Russia – which has been the odd man out since it joined (due more to its ownership of thousands of nuclear weapons than its position on the global rich list). It is the one international forum that brings together the world?s trade and financial institutions. Simply put it?s the world?s biggest cartel. Throughout the ?90s, via innocuous sounding edicts such as the ?Treaty Regarding Property Rights (TRIPS – keeping knowledge locked away amongst a handful of electronics and bio-tech firms) and ?Structural Adjustment Policies? (a euphemism for the looting of entire economies by modern day corporate privateers), the world was fully under the control of USA and its allies. The Soviet Union had been defeated by the power of Democracy Inc. and the US had no rivals anywhere. It was economic liberalism and US-style democracy all the way, with Slick Willy Clinton at the helm. It was the ?End of History?, as triumphantly proclaimed by right wing thinkers. Mission Accomplished? But it all turned out to be a little premature. In the twilight months of the Bush administration, the G8 looks more like a global spectator than the sole player. Across the world countries that the West had gotten used to ordering around have begun to dance to their own tune. Even ?reliable? US allies like Saudi Arabia aren?t afraid to say ?no? to the US?s face (they recently they turned down a request to release more oil into the global markets despite Dubya?s personal intervention). Around the world the battle for drug patents has basically been won by the third world drugs producers (Brazil, Thailand, India) after the G8 realised that neither the western pharma companies or the WTO could stop them. Latin America has now pretty much thrown out the IMF and their ilk, refusing to sup from the poisoned chalice of Structural Adjustment any more. During the ?80s and ?90s Argentina followed the dictates of the IMF & World Bank faithfully, only to be rewarded with the total collapse of their country?s economy – banks and factories closed overnight, and the Argentinian people responded with massive strikes and worker occupations of bankrupt factories (See SchNEWS 350). The elites of Argentina sensibly saw which way the wind was blowing and stepped aside to make way for the centre-left (and hardly revolutionary) government of Nestor Kirchner, who chucked out the IMF, WB, WTO and their advisors and refused to listen to the financial advisors who predicted doom and catastrophe. They were wrong, and since they stopped listening to the globalists both the Argentinean economy and average standard of living (not the same thing by the way) have gone up and up. Since then two-thirds of Latin America has followed suit, and the hemisphere, once America?s back yard, has begun to make faltering steps towards integration – independent of the gringos – via organisations such as MERCOSUR and the (much more ambitious) Bolivaran Alernative for the Americans (ALBA). But even this is just the tip of the iceberg. The economies of Asia, traditionally heavily dependent on the Americans, still remember the battering they took in the late 90s during the collapse of the ?Asian bubble?. Since then they?ve made sure that there’s plenty of extra dosh in their state coffers, ensuring that no matter how bad things get they don?t have to go down the path of short term gain for long term pain of IMF loans. The lack of customers has effectively ruined the IMF. From a budget of over $100 billion four years ago, they can now barely scrape together $10 billion, most of which now goes to just two countries: Turkey and Pakistan. The organisation which once played the role of global loanshark is now feeling itself the pinch. Once Turkey pays off the last of its outstanding loans, the IMF will basically run out of fresh sources of cash from the world?s poor. The net result of the failure of these US created and led institutions is that the G8 has lost control of global policy, in what even people inside the establishment are calling ?a guerilla assault on the Washington Consensus.? There?s still plenty of countries that are suffering horrendously from the same privatise-and-be-damned ideology of neoliberalism, but the tide is noticeably turning. States from China to Bolivia are turning state coffers over to internal development and poverty reduction, and in the process creating markets outside of the control of the G8. Stuggling against the tide the G8 is bringing in some of the larger non-western countries into the fold, intending to co-opt them into selling out the rest of the developing nations and making it worth their while to play ball according to US/European rules. The so-called ?Outreach Five (not the latest boy-band) consist of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. Last year, whilst the black block was busy shutting the city down, the G8 nations were kick-starting the ?Heiligendamm Process? aimed to get these countries on board. The problem (from the G8?s perspective), is that these countries aren?t likely to leave it at the level of discussion. They?re demanding an ever larger slice of the pie. End of an Error? Just about the only place where you can see the aggressive introduction of old-school neoliberal policies on weaker nations is in the countries occupied as part of the ?War on Terror?. In Afghanistan – and especially Iraq – entire state industries were privatised with a stroke of the American Proconsul?s pen. Water, health, education, industry were all declared open for the attentions of multinational corporations. The result has been as brutal as it has been predictable. Iraq?s public services (once the best in the Middle East) were destroyed almost overnight, spiralling its population further into poverty and easing Iraq?s population into armed resistance that has all but destroyed American plans for Iraq. It is to nobody?s surprise that the oil laws being drafted by the ?sovereign? state of Iraq allow for the return of all the major US oil companies, 36 years after they were kicked out by Ba?athist nationalism. The Iraq war looks more like one last desperate throw of the dice by a visibly weakening empire. Bush?s legacy may well be that the United States is now seen as a fundamentally dangerous country that smaller nations can band together against. In the process this has created organisations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan ? See SchNEWS 551) which now holds joint military exercises ?to fight back against new threats and challenges.? They also have an energy policy, the Asian Energy Security Grid, which has the potential to effectively counter US control the Middle-East?s oil. With this shift in global political power the West is likely to get increasingly desperate as their economies go down the pan and oil resource pressures start to bite. The likely consequences may not be pretty as the US and its allies up their military spending and repression to counter the largely phantom threat of terrorism. But it’s reassuring to SchNEWS that there are still those in the beast of the belly willing to counter it. More info on G8 in Japan: www.jca.apc.org/alt-g8/en and http://a.sanpal.co.jp/no-g8

British Media Commentary on Saudi Arabia & the Oil Price Crisis
5 Jul 2008
Introduction The past few months have seen an upsurge in comment on Saudi Arabia in the British media at a similar rate to the upsurge in oil prices, the current cause of the country being in the news. While previous Arab Media Watch studies found that portrayals of Saudi Arabia were “often negative and sometimes openly hostile” – particularly at the time of the Saudi royal visit to Britain in November 2007, and the BAE arms deal – the current spike in media attention has a far more reasoned character to it. For this report, AMW monitored all the British national daily newspapers (except the Financial Times), as well as the Evening Standard. Blame Saudi Out of a total of 20 editorials and commentaries, just five contained comments that seemed to place blame for the current oil price crisis on Saudi Arabia. The Daily Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin argued that “as things stand, protecting their precious reserves, rather than providing the world with cheaper oil, appears to be their main priority” (20 June 2008). The newspaper’s international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard described the visit of President Bush to the country in January “to plead for higher oil output,” only to be “politely rebuffed” (16 May 2008). Of Bush’s subsequent visit in May, Evans-Pritchard wrote: “If the Saudis deny help once again, they risk incalculable damage to their strategic alliance with Washington. The price of crude has rocketed by over $30 a barrel since that last fruitless meeting.” He continued: “The US-Saudi tango has been on thin ice ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11?Riyadh is giving no ground?The Saudis have let their output fall from 9.5m to 8.5m bpd over the last two years.” A few days later (20 May 2008), the Times’ US editor and assistant editor Gerard Baker wrote that following this meeting, “the helpful chaps at the House of Saud duly agreed to ramp up output by a few hundred thousand barrels a day.” He described this as “a drop in the tanker of Saudi,” which “to nobody’s great surprise?had no effect whatsoever.” However, Baker cast doubt on Bush’s efforts, suggesting they were “more of a political gesture than a meaningful policy initiative.” The Times’ chief foreign affairs commentator Bronwen Maddox labelled the Opec summit in Jeddah “a Saudi show, to deliver a Saudi message” (25 June 2008), adding: “Before Sunday’s meeting, King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz al-Saud said that the kingdom was resolved to prevent oil prices from rising ‘in an unjustified and abnormal manner’, while announcing an increase in production too small to have any such impact.” Don’t Blame Saudi Saudi Arabia, as the world’s largest producer, naturally loomed large in recent coverage of the oil price crisis. Shadow business secretary Alan Duncan noted in the Daily Telegraph that it was “the only country with enough capacity and flexibility to turn on the taps?” (27 May 2008). However, “life isn’t so simple,” he continued, explaining the relevance of various grades of oil and the corresponding different markets, concluding that “just turning on Opec’s taps would not necessarily solve the current problem.” In fact, he issued a word of warning: “?watch carefully the unbridled folly of those such as the Lib Dems who want to gang up on Saudi Arabia. Those same naifs who delighted at the fall of the Shah seem to want the same ghastly political outcome in Saudi Arabia- and the $300 oil that would come with it.” The Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin argued that the country is working to capacity (20 June 2008): “?the Saudis announced their intention to increase production by another 500,000 barrels per day, which will bring total production to 9.7 million barrels – the kingdom’s highest ever level. And that is about the upper limit of what the Saudis can produce for any sustained period.” However, “the Saudis will only produce more oil if they believe it is in their interests to do so,” Coughlin added, somewhat contradictorily. An Increase in Production Won’t Help Independent columnist Dominic Lawson exonerated Saudi Arabia (and Opec) from blame in the current price crisis, writing that “far from operating as a restrictive cartel?12 of the 13 members of Opec are pumping out oil at maximum capacity” (23 May 2008). The Saudis, being the 13th member, “are already producing well in excess of their official Opec quota.” He also noted that an announced production increase by 300,000 barrels per day “had no effect in halting the upward rush of the market price.” In another article (17 June 2008), Lawson stated that “oil makes hypocrites of us all,” noting the overarching presence of politics in the recent high-level visits to Saudi Arabia by George Bush, Ban Ki-Moon and Gordon Brown. “The strange thing is that there isn’t an absolute shortage of oil in the markets,” he added. “There’s already a sufficient amount of the black stuff to go round to meet current levels of demand, as the Saudis have wearily insisted often enough over the past few months.” Therefore, Lawson concluded, King Abdullah’s pledge to raise output “is the purest politics, simply to get the weight of the world’s opprobrium off his kaffiyeh. I don’t blame the King, however.” An editorial in the Independent (16 June 2008) suggested a few reasons for the oil price crisis: “There is little doubt that speculation is playing some part in pushing up the price of oil to an unprecedented $140 a barrel. Yet the fact that inventories have been at normal levels suggests this is not the driving force behind price rises. Growing demand is the far more likely culprit.” However, there was some suspicion felt about the Saudi role: “It is often asserted that Saudis still have vast oil reserves. But there is no independently verified proof of this. We have no choice but to rely on what they choose to tell us.” Nonetheless, the editorial cast doubt on the possibility of bringing the oil price down by increasing Saudi production. “How long before our political leaders return to Saudi and its Opec allies to plead for more? And what will be the political price extracted for this?” asked the Independent, adding that “it is ridiculous for Western governments to tell Saudi Arabia and other oil producers how much they ought to pump out of the ground. The debate ought to be about how best to break our economic dependence on oil.” An editorial in the same newspaper the following week (23 June 2008) likewise detected the overarching presence of politics in Brown’s attendance of the oil summit in Jeddah: “In attending the Saudi King’s energy summit at the weekend, the Prime Minister colluded in a publicity stunt of the first order?The clear intention was to convince hard-pressed British consumers that he feels our pain on energy prices and is doing his level best to bring them down.” The editorial apportioned blame to several factors: “The sky-rocketing price of energy in Britain stems at least as much from his own government’s tax take and the energy companies’ profits as it does from the vagaries of the Saudi oil flow. If production is an issue, then the Iraq war is at least as much to blame. A prime ministerial call for national belt-tightening would be a more honest and dignified approach.” Independent columnist Michael Savage cast doubt on increased production as the solution to the oil price crisis (21 May 2008). “Recent events have shown that there are problems with the assumption that Opec could ease the oil price by turning on the taps,” he wrote, noting the “little impact” of an announced production increase. The Evening Standard’s business and financial commentator Anthony Hilton agreed (23 May 2008): “It is years since any new oil field was found which could deliver more than one million barrels a day and currently the world consumes more than 85 million barrels a day. Put like that, the increase in production of 300,000 barrels which President Bush got out of the Saudis last week was hardly worth the paper used for the press release.” The Times’ international business editor Carl Mortishead had a different reason for doubting the effectiveness of an increase in Saudi oil production (23 June 2008): “The truth is that the world doesn’t need the extra Saudi crude. It’s the wrong sort of oil – too sulphurous and viscous for refiners trying to produce more petrol, diesel and jet fuel.” An editorial in the same newspaper also cast doubt, citing global decline in supplies as the reason (20 April 2008): “Even Saudi Arabia, the desert kingdom that sits on 25 per cent of the world’s known hydrocarbon reserves, can no longer be relied on to turn on the taps, even if it wanted to. Oil is also becoming progressively harder to find and more expensive to refine.” Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie had little interest in production quotas, instead noting the reduction in traffic on British roads due to “the Shell tanker strike plus the staggering cost of petrol” (19 June 2008). He added that “we do have something to thank the Saudis for – we can get to work quicker.” Statements & Predictions Other commentators went less into the mechanisms of global oil markets and production, and instead made broader, gloomier statements and predictions about the future of oil, with particular regard to Saudi Arabia. However, a few commentators still saw a boom time for the country. Cause for Concern “Oil does terrible things to a nation, breaking the link between taxation and revenue, and so encouraging corruption,” wrote Daily Telegraph leader writer and Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan (30 April 2008). “Look at the Gulf States…unfortunate enough to be sitting on the stuff.” The Guardian’s industrial correspondent Terry Macalister also sounded a note of alarm for Saudi Arabia, whose economy “and political stability” are “tied heavily to crude revenue” (20 June 2008). Despite the billions in extra revenue, Saudi leaders are “worried the long-term impact of high prices will be to cause conflict with western countries that militarily and politically support the House of Saud,” he added. “The kingdom’s rulers are also fearful that high prices will lead to lower demand as users switch to other fuels.” Similarly, the Independent’s diplomatic editor Anne Penketh wrote that “it appears the Saudis are just as worried that record prices?could dampen growth in the industrialised West and lower demand, which would in turn hurt the kingdom” (16 June 2008). “Saudi Arabia is keenly aware of the political and economic effect of the oil market on the upwards spiral of food prices, and contributed $500m to the World Food Programme,” she added. The Times’ international business editor Carl Mortishead described a situation in which having oil is not enough, writing that “the price of natural gas in the Gulf has soared amid shortages and increased global demand” (19 May 2008). This is to blame for “the oil-rich Gulf states?planning to import coal?because, for the first time, the Gulf states are beginning to feel the burden of the soaring cost of fossil fuels.” Cashing In A couple of commentators saw a more positive side to Saudi Arabia’s current state, if only for its own national interest. Patrick Bishop in the Daily Mail focused on the wealth already accrued by the country (16 May 2008): “Despite their mind-boggling extravagance, they remain monstrously minted thanks to a 70-year oil boom that has sometimes faltered but never collapsed. Those who have succeeded in getting close to them have done pretty well, too.” The Times’ City columnist Edward Fennell agreed, writing that “whatever else may be happening in the rest of the world, the Gulf states are riding high on global demand for their oil,” thanks to “profits sky-high and confidence that this will continue for the foreseeable future” (12 June 2008).

Mike Marqusee’s Top Ten Books
5 Jul 2008
A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon Once you get accustomed to the invented prose idiom, the groundedness of this epic takes a grip. The architecture of the trilogy embodies a big (Marxist) picture of historical development, but it’s built out of emotional intimacy and physical immediacy. The conclusion of Sunset Song, the second volume in the trilogy, with its invocation of the sufferings of the first World War, moved me as much as anything I’ve encountered in British fiction. Poor Things by Alasdair Gray A wildly inventive yet in its own way utterly logical fictional confection. What’s great is that the bravura assemblage of voices, styles and narrative gimmicks all tend to a purpose; they’re not only immense fun, they’re fused and directed by Gray’s compassion for aspirant humanity and his contempt for power and hierarchy. This is a wonderfully partisan novel. Beyond a Boundary by CLR James This is not only by some way the best book ever written about the sport of cricket, it’s also a wonderful piece of inventive prose artistry, genre-busting in its mix of memoir, history, theory and political polemic. It ranges from colonial Trinidad to industrial Lancashire by way of ancient Greece and Victorian England — all swept along by the radical verve of James’ intelligence. He saw cricket in context, shaped by and giving shape to the conflicts of the world in which it was played. James took cricket seriously — perhaps too seriously — as an art form, and he was demanding in his judgements, which have a terrific elan, even when they’re wrong. Be warned: cricket’s most eminent Marxist has a surprising soft spot for the English public school ethos! A Wet Afternoon by Sadat Hassan Manto Toba Tek Singh — set in an asylum for the insane on the newly drawn India-Pakistan border in 1947 — is the great fictional comment on the tragedy of partition. Manto (who was also a screenwriter and journalist) wrote stories in a plain-spoken Urdu about prostitutes, dissolute intellectuals, compromised small businessmen and imprisoned housewives. He’s a sour but compassionate observer, and he leaves the big judgements up to the reader. Even in translation, this jaded epicurean with a stubborn moral core speaks with a distinctive voice. He died in 1955, at the age of 42. Leon Trotsky trilogy by Isaac Deutscher: The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, The Prophet Outcast You don’t have to be a Trotskyist to derive pleasure and enrichment from Deutscher’s beautifully written biographical trilogy. This is more than Trotsky’s story — which itself is one of the most dramatic, and tragic, of the 20th century — it’s a supple study in the rhythms of political and historical change. It’s clear and fluent and deeply considered and introduces you painlessly to a wide range of people, places, ideas and debates. The Polish-born Deutscher was himself an anti-Stalinist Marxist, a brave and independent intellect, whose essay The Non-Jewish Jew I’d also recommend. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry As Indira Gandhi’s ‘emergency’ grips the country, four characters — a Parsee widow, a middle class student, and two lower caste tailors — find their lives squashed together in a Bombay flat. Among other things, this book is a chronicle of the cruelties of that era, and provides a much sharper commentary on Indian politics than is found in more celebrated novels. The method here is unapologetically, and masterfully, naturalistic. The suffering in this book comes in many forms, is at times unbearable, but is always concrete and credible; so are the moments of hope or relief, buoyed up by the humour and idiosyncracy of the characters. Out Stealing Horses by Per Pettersen It’s hard to describe how and why Pettersen’s novel becomes so deeply engrossing. Like his previous works, this one shifts between past trauma and present uncertainties, and accumulates its insights, builds its very tangible world, sentence by sentence. In Out Stealing Horses an old man retires to a cottage in northern Norway and reflects on the events of a summer holiday some fifty years earlier. As the story unwinds, the long-term effects of these events become apparent. Pettersen refuses easy closures. His narrative is mostly close-up, but there are also sidelong glances at Norwegian history, at the Nazi occupation, at class and poverty. Despite the subject matter, and the real sadness, it’s anything but glum. When I read this book, I really felt I was seeing — feeling — the world afresh. Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau In 1845, Thoreau beat a retreat from the polite society of Concord, Massachusetts, to live in the woods by Walden Pond. The book is the record of his experiment: to see how many of the ‘necessities’ of civilisation we can really do without. But it’s more: it embodies an attempt to live fully and deliberately, to find a deep meaning in daily life. He didn’t go the woods just to prove it could be done, but to re-appropriate himself, to live a more authentic life than the one offered us, ready-packaged, off the shelf. Thoreau was one of the first critics of what we now call consumerism, which he sees as destructive of the environment and the human spirit. The book is full of wry humour, as Thoreau mocks himself and his society, and the prose has an un-showy solidity, like skilled carpentry. King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild There’s not much in modern history that exceeds the depravity of the ‘Congo Free State’, the vast territory appropriated by the Belgian King in 1885 as a kind of private enterprise free-fire zone. In the end, millions were killed, millions more mutilated, tortured, enslaved, by a small, sophisticated European business coterie. This is the story of that atrocity, but also of the global campaign protesting against it, a forerunner of the modern human rights movement. So among the genocidal villains and amoral rogues are genuine heroes: Hochschild makes sure neither are forgotten. Complete Writings by William Blake I take Blake at his own estimation: as a prophet. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a startling act of literary and intellectual insurgency. The conclusion of the epic illustrated book Jerusalem something for which here is no parallel in English poetry. Blake struck deep into me when I was a teenager and I’ve gone back to him repeatedly over the years, each time finding more than I expected. The ‘gentle mystic’ is largely a creation of literary legend; Blake was ferocious: “half friendship is the bitterest enmity.” The revolutionary republican prosecuted a kind of one-man ‘culture war’ for much of his life. Result: poverty and obscurity. Don’t worry about the details of Blake’s weird invented mythology; there’s more than enough that’s arrestingly transparent to compensate for the obscure bits.

Poor get hit as business walks free
5 Jul 2008
Even as the government admits to a 10 billion black hole in its finances caused by its gifting of tax back to businesses to plug their pensions holes, it looks set to U-turn on its policy to close corporation tax loopholes costing the exchequer tens of billions more every year. Threats from major UK companies to relocate overseas or into tax havens has prompted a move to revise corporation tax rules following high-profile complaints that the UK?s taxation levels are significantly higher than elsewhere in the EU. Pharmaceuticals giant Shire recently announced it would relocate to Ireland to take advantage of the low tax regime there. While UK law stipulates a basic corporation tax of 28%, corporations on average pay closer to 22%, with some of the largest paying significantly under this figure. A simplification of the rules mooted by the treasury last year would have closed loopholes which at present allow huge levels of tax evasion. The UK has recently come under fire for itself maintaining more tax havens under British rule than anywhere else in the world, something which campaign groups argue has directly led to tens of thousands of deaths. Corporate tax avoidance is thought to cost 25 billion every year ? more than twice the amount these major companies were gifted by the government in tax breaks to allow them to refill the pension pots they themselves had emptied. In two years, the same amount would pay for the total line of credit currently being offered to major banks as part of the credit crunch – 50 billion is being underwritten in loans to maintain the flow of money through the economy. The same banks, along with a host of other companies, are already benefiting from government handouts this year to the tune of 10 billion, as they pour money into pension funds to keep them afloat. This money, rather than coming from profits or business chiefs who were the investors who caused the problem, is being paid in from taxes. Pension deficits have soared by more than 100bn in the past year, the Pension Protection Fund said recently. Meanwhile, as the Treasury struggles to maintain its financial balance, fears are rising that the pensioners themselves could be at risk of falling prey to the 10p tax band changes which the government have proposed. Up to 420,000 pensioners with small private pensions of up to 1,000 a year could start having to pay tax of 200 a year from next April, under new plans ? potentially raising around 80 million a year.

The Silent Conflict: Harlow College
4 Jul 2008
A year ago, teaching staff at Harlow College staged a five-day strike: an unprecedented action for them but one which reflected the desperation of the situation as a politically motivated principalship, led by Colin Hindmarch, played an ideologically driven game with the interests of learners in order to smash the union. The conditions imposed upon teachers included a massive reduction in wages for many with the introduction of a new unqualified ‘tutor’ role, the imposition of an effective 56-hour working week and reduction of holidays from 45 to 30 days a year. This was imposed despite the fact that Hindmarch created more management positions and raised their pay by 11%. However, on top of all this, around 40 experienced teachers were denied opportunities to continue working there because they were deemed to be opposed to the new Teaching and Learning Strategy. A further similar number of teachers opted for voluntary redundancy, unable to accept such a draconian and spiteful regime. Since the headline-grabbing events of last June, there has been little said and even less printed on the state of affairs at Harlow College. This is not because it has settled down. On the contrary, the situation has become ever more desperate, in particular for the students. But why the silence? The college principalship was suffering most due to adverse publicity and news reports which exposed its cruel, politically motivated initiatives; it cleverly contrived a situation which would stifle criticism, in particular from the one source which should have been the most vocal: the Universities and Colleges Union. After the redundancies and the failure to abide by the law to meaningfully negotiate the new contracts, huge pressure from the union and Bill Rammell MP was placed on the college to accept ACAS negotiations. The college accepted this with the proviso that UCU would never publicly criticise the college. This UCU foolishly accepted. In the wake of this agreement, a Working Party was established to find a way forward, due to conclude at Christmas 2007. However, enjoying the continued silence of UCU, the college pushed back this deadline month after month. It is now set to conclude in September. Coupled with a new learner agreement which students were obliged to sign upon enrolment which also prohibited them from making public criticisms, this has meant that the College is now able to bask in relative silence. Only a Guardian article of 18th March 2008 exposed a hint of the appalling conditions at the college, thanks to the bravery of the president of the local NUS refusing to sign the learner agreement. However, UCU, like the principal, was tragically ‘unavailable for comment’. The college continues to hold its remaining teaching staff and students hostage to a never-ending working party which the union foolishly allowed itself to be outmanoeuvred into accepting. Now we must turn to the details of what has been happening at the college, tucked away from public scrutiny. The staff turnover rate continues to be alarmingly high; one principal tutor in English resigning after little more than a fortnight in position, a sociology teacher sacked after a month and a psychology teacher given two hours to clear his desk after having joined UCU less than 24 hours previously. The LSC and Ofsted published damning reports on the college last autumn. Ofsted was most scathing, pointing out their shock at an ICT class of 100 students being taught via a personal address system. At a public meeting effectively forced upon the Principal and Bill Rammell, Colin Hindmarch claimed that the costs of redundancies were not high, at only around 150,000. When pressed to reveal the actual figures, some months later, he acknowledged that the cost was just under 1 million. Now seeking further clarification, corporation board minutes reveal it to be more like 1.3 million. Some may argue that this could be justified if the college improves its service to students and achieves better results. But this is perhaps the most tragic story of all. In March 2008, the college delayed releasing its winter A-level exam results to students for almost a week. When finally revealed, no details of grades were published but only a paltry 58% of AS-level exams were passed – a huge decline on the previous year. Following this, the chairman of the Corporation Board, Martin Coleman, said in the local paper, “We are happy with the way things are going.” The significance of these results are that these students have only experienced learning under the Hindmarch regime, including his peculiar ‘subject days’ where students learn the same subject once a week but for the whole day. The college also rigged the elections to the posts of student representatives on the corporation board. Realising that the NUS leader would have won any open contest, they contrived a complicated delegatory system to avoid any public debate and to insulate the corporation board from hearing real concerns and criticisms. The college is also engaging in the practice of withdrawing students from their exams weeks before they are due to be held. The students are then transferred onto short ICT classes which they cannot fail to pass. This then serves to distort the ‘success rate’ data because the student will receive certification and the failure to complete the course which has occupied them for the rest of the year would not be revealed in any figures. Accounts of students begging to be allowed to sit the exams that they have been studying for months, under wholly inadequate conditions, have been rife. Many parents have had pay for private tuition and are bitter that this may be exploited by the college as they may still take credit for the results achieved. The local MP and minister for the area, Bill Rammell, has been most reluctantly dragged into the dispute and now finds himself accused of complacency and expediency. He once criticised UCU publicly for their methods last year but refused to give details so they could be given an opportunity to justify themselves. He also disassociated himself from the article published in the Guardian but refuses to elaborate on those elements which he considered were untrue. He also claimed that academic opinion on ‘Subject Days’ for FE colleges were mixed, with some claiming they were a good idea. Can any reader enlighten us as to where subject days are deployed successfully? Last month, Rammell and Hindmarch attempted to pacify critics by inviting a few select individuals around the college to see the wonderful new facilities. This may have made Rammell look good for the taxpayers’ money being invested but most concluded that the college could not blame poor resources for the college’s failures. Because of this, Hindmarch was subjected to wholesale criticism where he even conceded that ‘subject days’ were failing, citing the fact that May – a crucial month for exam preparations – has two bank holidays, depriving students of essential learning time for any course they study on Mondays. This was pointed out to him when he first tried to impose ‘subject days’ in March 2007, but he simply sacked those who raised such professional concerns. Scandalously, Bill Rammell still opposes any calls for Colin Hindmarch to resign. He claims that to remove him would be the ‘populist’ thing to do but is not in the interest of the students. Even though Hindmarch has the LSC, Ofsted and the QIA almost constantly in residence, providing stabilisers for this child in blue braces who cannot ride his bike, Rammell insists on protecting him. His majority is only a tiny 97 votes and yet he has spoken up to protect Hindmarch’s position with far greater voracity than he ever did to protect the jobs of around a hundred teachers this time last year. No one believes that Rammell would ever send a child of his to an institution run by Hindmarch and most people are truly shocked at his attitude and downright complacency. The real reason why he will not call for Hindmarch to resign is because Hindmarch will ignore him. This will expose the reality of Rammell’s impotence and failure to properly act upon the incorporated status of colleges which allowed this wholly unaccountable situation to arise. There is no end in sight for the conflict and it is foolish of Mr Rammell to continually search for the shortest route for a mystical Harlow College paper towel so that he can wipe his hands of the whole affair. The college faces a huge litigation bill when UCU goes to court for protective awards for the college’s failure to meaningfully consult over the redundancies, and there are cases for unfair dismissal and victimisation as well. Harlow College is a tragic saga and its full story will be known one day. This article provides just a glimpse of a curriculum’s worth of lessons that we could all learn from.

Freedom of Information: Scotland to explore extending its reach
4 Jul 2008
The Scottish Government has raised the prospect of extending the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act to cover more organisations carrying out certain public functions. Parliamentary Business Minister Bruce Crawford said the Government is committed to fully exploring the issues around coverage but stressed that a final decision on extending coverage would be taken only after consultation with interested parties and those organisations potentially affected. As a first step, Mr Crawford will have discussions with interested parties about bringing within the scope of the Act the following organisations: > Registered social landlords > Contractors who provide public services that are a function of a public authority (for example, contractors providing prison services) > Local authority trusts or bodies set up by local authorities (for example, bodies set up by local authorities as limited companies to run leisure facilities) At the start of a week when the Minister will be in London and Cardiff to discuss FOI policy in the UK Government and the Welsh Assembly, Mr Crawford said: “The Scottish Government is committed to the principles that underpin Freedom of Information legislation. Principles of openness and transparency, essential parts of open democratic government and responsive public services. “We’ve taken steps within the Government to publish more of our material proactively. For example, we recently revised our Publication Scheme which describes the vast range of Government information we routinely publish. The First Minister also recently announced a pilot scheme within an area of the Scottish Government, which will see an increase in the amount of information made public. “And we are committed to continually assessing whether the scope of the Act can be improved. I believe it has served the people of Scotland well but it is still a relatively new piece of legislation and many people and organisations are still getting used to both its real and potential impact. “The organisations we are looking at in terms of coverage have not been chosen at random. They are bodies about whom concerns over a lack of coverage have consistently been raised with us. The concerns may have arisen because of changes in the way public services are delivered – for example the contracting out of services traditionally provided directly by a public authority. “Discussions will take place before any decision is taken to formally consult. But formal consultation is not a rubber-stamping exercise. Any extension of coverage needs to be measured and appropriate. “For example, we will look closely at the issue of the proportional impact on smaller organisations particularly in the voluntary sector. “I am aware there are differing arguments and there is a need to balance those. But I believe it is only right to give serious thought to extending FOI coverage in Scotland. “Later this week I will discuss FOI with the relevant UK and Welsh Ministers and share our experiences. I am keen to ensure that Scotland continues to build a reputation for greater transparency and accountability”. The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (the Act) provides significant and important rights allowing access to recorded information. The Act came into force on January 1, 2005 and provides a statutory right of access to information held by Scottish public authorities. These include, for example, the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, local authorities, schools, colleges, NHS Scotland and the police. The Act also requires the proactive publication of certain information. Compliance with the Act is promoted and enforced by the Scottish Information Commissioner.

SEP speaks to voters in Cottingham and Willerby
4 Jul 2008
Chris Talbot is the candidate of the Socialist Equality Party in the July 10 by-election in the constituency of Haltemprice and Howden in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It was called following the resignation of sitting Conservative MP David Davis in protest at government ?anti-terrorist? legislation enabling police to detain individuals for up to 42 days without charge. Socialist Equality Party members and supporters campaigned in the villages Cottingham and Willerby on July 2 and a reporting team from the World Socialist Web Site spoke to workers, students and youth about the issues raised in the election. Angela Morkos is a mature student at Hull University and lives in Cottingham. ?I am familiar with all the issues that people are standing for. The SEP stands for more or less what I agree with,? she said. ?I am against the war in Iraq, I don?t like big business and I think David Davis is mobilising right-wing policies in Britain. I watch the news on TV and I suspected this. And I would never trust a Conservative anyway, to be quite honest.? Angela said she fully agreed with the SEP?s aim of preventing Davis mobilising the popular hostility to the Labour government for his own right-wing agenda. She explained that she opposed all the attacks on democratic rights carried out by successive Conservative and Labour governments. ?I think Gordon Brown has been disappointing. I supported Blair when he first came into power but I was disappointed over the Iraq war. I didn?t believe all this about weapons of mass destruction when I heard about it on the TV. I think it was a bit like Maggie Thatcher and the Falklands War, that Blair wanted to be the next Churchill. I think he had delusions of grandeur. ?Before this election I have tended to support Liberal Democrat policies in Parliament.? Angela said that she wasn?t aware that the Liberal Party were not standing their own candidate and that they were calling for a vote supporting Davis. The SEP explained that this showed how far the Liberals have moved in a right-wing direction, that they can now support an avowed anti-working class politician such as David Davis. Angela said she supported the fact that only the SEP was putting forward a coherent programme representing working class people. In response to questions about the impact of the worsening economic crisis on working class people, Angela said, ?I think it very worrying. I am on a low income. I feel that around here businesses exploit me. I am on Disability Living Allowance. I think there is a prejudice against people who are unable to work. I am doing my best and am actually studying to improve my situation and I find I am just exploited. ?All the basics are going up?milk, cheese, butter. I have to live on lentils basically and people lending me a couple of quid because they feel sorry for me. That is not very healthy and I?m anaemic as it is. ?Then there are dental charges and I don?t know how I am going to afford those. I also have to take regular medication and I am just glad that at least prescription charges are free at the moment for people on Disability Living Allowance. ?I think all this stems from Margaret Thatcher anyway. Tony Blair said that he agreed with her and I think it all worsened right from the beginning with her. And the governments after Thatcher have just continued in the same vein since then?. Kate Webster is a retired doctor?s receptionist and lives in Cottingham. Chris Talbot is the candidate of the Socialist Equality Party in the July 10 by-election in the constituency of Haltemprice and Howden in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It was called following the resignation of sitting Conservative MP David Davis in protest at government ?anti-terrorist? legislation enabling police to detain individuals for up to 42 days without charge. Socialist Equality Party members and supporters campaigned in the villages Cottingham and Willerby on July 2 and a reporting team from the World Socialist Web Site spoke to workers, students and youth about the issues raised in the election.The WSWS reporting team asked her what she thought of David Davis, the Labour Party and their attitude to the question of democratic rights. ?I don?t think David Davis stands for democratic rights. I thought the Conservatives are always for the richer people aren?t they? What I can?t understand is him resigning and then trying to get re-elected. What is all that about?? Katie agreed that both the Labour Party and the Conservatives are right-wing formations, hostile to the working class. ?I wouldn?t have voted for Davis and I think the Labour Party are too right-wing. I saw that the NSPCC [a national child protection organisation] was trying to get smacking stopped, but Davis wasn?t interested in that. ?I didn?t agree with the Iraq war. The Labour Party are more like capitalists now. They are giving themselves a great big raise and the credit crisis is not affecting their pay is it? ?There is no party now for the working class. I will read the SEP election statement and I will vote for Chris Talbot,? Katie said. During the campaign in Cottingham several other local residents told the SEP that they had heard about the party?s campaign and would be supporting Chris Talbot. Among these was a currently unemployed bricklayer, who said that he had read the SEP election statement a few days ago and that he agreed with a revolutionary socialist programme. He said he would like further discussion on the role of new left formations in Europe and the Socialist Workers Party. He added that he was going to attend the Eve of Poll meeting being held by the SEP at Cottingham Civic Hall on July 9. During the day Chris Talbot was filmed and interviewed by a student from the University of Sheffield who was covering the by-election as her final project.

Just a Middle-Class Issue?
3 Jul 2008
The news was depressing, to say the least. Two weeks ago, a poll conducted for the Observer found that a majority of the British public still think that the scientists are arguing about the causes of climate change. The reality, as I and many others have repeated more or less ad nauseum, is that the debate was settled a long time ago, and that the major areas of scientific uncertainty are about how far and how fast, not whether climate change is happening at all. I blame the media almost entirely for this discrepancy between public understanding and scientific reality. The Daily Telegraph, for instance, still pumps out climate-denialist articles on a regular basis, and carries frequent antideluvian commentary on the subject from the likes of Christopher Brooker (whose latest piece excoriates “fanatical upholders of the [climate change] dogma”). The Mail does likewise, though Melanie Phillips has been curiously silent on the subject for several months. Like the tobacco lobbyists who spent years denying the links between smoking and cancer, global warming denialists don’t have to win the debate ? they simply have to confuse the public indefinitely to successfully undermine any political action which might hit the interests of their backers in the fossil fuel industries. The arguments change all the time: this year it is “global warming has stopped“, while last year it was “hurricanes aren’t linked with warming”, and the year before “satellites don’t show any warming of the atmosphere“. As each argument is laboriously refuted by scientists, the deniers simply drop it and skip onto the next one. The second headline finding from the Observer poll further underlines this confusion. An equal number of people (about 40% in each case) think that “climate change might not be as bad as some people say”. Again, the frequent cries from the anti-environment right about global warming “alarmism” have clearly hit home. There is further bad news on the environment versus economy debate. While concern about the economy is seeing its highest score since 1993, concern about the environment is flatlining in the June 23 Mori poll, and is well down from the higher levels seen during the launch of the Stern and IPCC reports in early 2007. But with polls, detail is everything. Today’s new poll result shows that a clear majority favours government action on the environment v the economy, while an even larger majority supports the introduction of green taxes. So why the contradiction? The discrepancy may lie with different techniques used by different pollsters ? the Observer poll was carried out by Ipsos Mori, while the latest Guardian survey was conducted by ICM. It may also lie with the exact wording of the question, which in the latter case probably leaves more room for individual interpretation. Also, people know that they are “supposed” to be concerned about the environment, so may prioritise it when questioned by a pollster, but fail to volunteer it in their own list of suggested priorities. The ICM poll does throw up some other interesting results. When asked whether they thought their friends would now by cheaper groceries ? rather than more expensive environmentally friendly alternatives ? given the recent rises in the cost of living, a majority of nearly 60% went for the cheaper option. This suggests that in buying patterns at least, the economic downturn is indeed having a clear impact on ethical choices. But perhaps the most fascinating result of all emerges from the small print of the different social classes of the ICM survey respondents. Environmentalists are constantly accused of being middle-class lifestyle faddists, who don’t understand the day-to-day financial pressures faced by “ordinary” working people. But the number of people who thought that environment should be the government’s priority rather than the economy was substantially higher (56%) among the lower income, less well-educated DE demographic than among the better-off ABs (47%). Lower-income social groups also have a much lighter environmental footprint overall: only 42% of DEs took a foreign holiday over the last three years, whilst 77% of ABs did. Better-off people also own more cars, as you might expect ? only 5% of DEs have three or more cars, whilst 15% of ABs do. So perhaps anti-environmental class warriors like the editors of Spiked need to find a new cause to champion. The working-class people who they claim “can’t afford to be concerned about climate change” actually care more about the future of the planet than the rich ? and are doing a lot less damage to boot. So next time you hear someone defending motorway expansion or cheap flights on behalf of the British poor, ask yourself the question: whose side are they really on?

Afghanistan under the knife and hammer
3 Jul 2008
The procedure is quite simple. Choose a country in the world that seems to be suffering, in some way dysfunctional, ripe for ‘intervention’. Perform some ‘surgical’ air strikes and, after a quick and painless stitch-up, auction it off to the highest bidders. Having done that, so the theory goes, you can return home and contemplate your good deeds. But, sticking with the medical metaphor for a second, you are not a doctor and you wouldn’t know the hippocratic oath if it was printed in reverse lettering on your forehead. Whatever ‘illness’ you were supposedly dealing with has metastasized while the body is resisting your implants. In fact, the ‘patient’ keeps trying to kick your ass every time you come near him. Time to give up? Hell no. While Bush sends more troops to Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has insisted that there will be no ‘artificial timetable’ for British troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Okay, but how about a real timetable? Take a look at what’s happening. The current propaganda, being widely repeated in various fora, is that the occupation – despite all the difficulties and the terrible burdens we must bear – is ameliorating the situation of Afghanistan. Thus, practically every commentator is repeating the incorrect claim, floated by Laura Bush, that infant mortality has declined by 25% since the occupation began. In fact, one study led by the World Bank, which is heading reconstruction and development programmes in Afghanistan, said last year that infant mortality had fallen – not by 25% or 26%, but by 18%. And that study excluded the worst-hit regions of Afghanistan, such as Helmand, Uruzgan, Kandahar, Zabul and Nuristan, because of security concerns. That is, it excluded 15% of the population from its scope. On the other hand, mortality among under fives has certainly risen. So, in 2005, 20% of the under-five population perished. In 2006, 25% died. Okay, so infant mortality in the least war-torn regions fell by 18% in five years, while in just one year, the rate of child mortality across the whole country increased by 25%. So, what are we supposed to be celebrating? More children get to live beyond their first 12 months before biting the dust from starvation, treatable diseases and, er, the odd bomb or bullet? As for the 75% who get past the age of five, if they do ever get to be grown-ups, they will at least have some interesting prospects – the torture chamber, rape, starvation, the destruction of their farms at the hands of DynCorp, murder at the hands of a local patriarch flush with dollars and self-regarding pomp, thermobaric bombardment… There is no Lancet survey for Afghanistan. We have had some estimates of deaths in the first year of the war, the highest of which was supplied by Jonathan Steele of The Guardian, who estimated 49,000 direct and indirect deaths resulting from the war. There are occasional estimates of civilians killed, but the detection rate is likely to be extremely low – to my knowledge, there is no consistent effort to actually trace the number of deaths there. The UN provides figures, estimating the rate of deaths among civilians in the hundreds over the last six months. Frankly, that is just unbelievable (and, actually, I would like to know how they distinguish between a combatant and a civilian – presumably they rely on the occupation authorities for this kind of information). Consider just one facet of the war. In Iraq, between 50 and 100 Iraqis die as a result of air strikes every day. When the secret air war on both Iraq and Afghanistan was confirmed, the figures showed that the biggest spike in bombings was in Afghanistan where the number of major raids reached more than 800 per month. And we’re supposed to believe that the death rate resulting from air strikes alone is lower than in Iraq, where the number of mass bombings – though very high – was less? In Iraq, in a period of three years, 78,000 violent deaths were caused by air strikes in Iraq (this was before the big spike in aerial bombardments). In Afghanistan, where the rate of aerial bombardment has always been higher, the figure must be higher. One informal estimate of deaths last year was carried out by Associated Press. It suggested that a total of 5,100 people had died violently in the first 9 months of 2007 (and most were killed by the occupation). Given that such passive surveys tend to massively underestimate the true scale of deaths, we are really talking about tens of thousands of deaths in that period, at least if we want to be realistic. Given the longevity of the war and its increasing brutality, if a Lancet-style survey can ever be carried out in Afghanistan, the total deaths may even be higher than in Iraq. One index of the rate of destruction is the rate at which the insurgents are able to recruit and expand. Where the occupation is most bloody, the resistance is most concentrated. Until recently, south-west Afghanistan has been what the ‘Sunni triangle’ was in Iraq. It was where the US was most unpopular, and where attacks generally occurred most frequently. But now, the ‘Taliban’ – realistically, we know that most insurgents are not actually Talibs, and many of the actual Taliban leaders are on the receiving end of serenades from Hamid Karzai – are controlling more of the country than the US. The rate at which occupying troops are being killed has been rising year on year, peaking in June this year, and surpassing the rate of ‘coalition’ deaths in Iraq for the first time. The insurgency controls ever larger tracts of the country. The verities of Afghanistan are poorly gauged, as I have indicated, but so far as we can tell what is happening, we know that the occupiers no longer command the support of most Afghans. The patience and forebearance of Afghans was and is enormous, despite the abuses, despite the torture chambers, despite the indiscriminate killings, the bombing raids resulting in massacres, and despite the obscene ‘Green Zone’ style luxury for occupiers and their auxiliaries in Kabul while much of the population is actually starving. Despite the obvious unpopularity of the Taliban, most people appear to want to negotiate a deal with them rather than prosecute a long and bloody war. Even the puppet administration of Hamid Karzai and the very meek and gentle General Rashid Dostum would like to cut some sort of a deal. Of course, there are those for whom the war is working out just swell. The warlords whom the US pays off to keep order are seeing their private armies expand greatly as they reap greater profits from the opium crop. Power is increasingly localised, and Hamid Karzai doesn’t have a finger of real influence beyond Kabul. Contractors such as DynCorp are making out as well, because their role is to destroy the opium farms (those belonging to the poor farmers, not the big local rulers who are effectively under Nato protection). Curiously, DynCorp never seem to succeed in reducing drugs production wherever they are despatched to do so, yet they continually get the contracts. And as for Washington? The last thing they want is to get out. Both Democrats and Republicans are intent on increasing the commitment to Afghanistan, if necessary by scaling back the war in Iraq. They know they are in danger of losing the whole situation. Not only is the war in Afghanistan turning the population against the occupiers. In Pakistan, where the government is assaulting ‘Taliban strongholds’ with great ferocity, local populations are actually becoming more and not less supportive of the Talibs. The US is increasingly projecting its force across the border, and sabre-rattling against the Pakistani government (even Karzai is getting in on that act). The danger of a regional war is escalating in that “global Balkans” – as Brezinski, Obama’s foreign policy advisor, dubs the region – and the United States government is raising the stakes.

Police force journalist to share notes
2 Jul 2008
Freelance journalist Shiv Malik must hand over his source material on terrorism to the police, the High Court ruled last week, slamming Malik for daring to take the case to a judicial review – and forcing him to pay costs. Malik?s crucial test case succeeded in reining in the police, who had raided his house in March in search of his notes. The court?s main ruling two weeks ago spelt out that the police have no right to conduct speculative “fishing expeditions” to force journalists to hand over their research. But the case has starkly revealed how the terror laws mean journalists must go to the authorities if they suspect that a source has information about ?terrorism?. Given the broad-brush definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2006 ? which includes “glorifying” terror and possessing terrorist materials without the intention of committing an offence ? the latest ruling means many Muslims will perceive journalists as a direct extension of the police. Anyone with genuine information about the terrorist milieu will have to weigh up the risk that talking to a reporter is like talking to the cops. The court?s first ruling, however, was welcomed by Malik, who stressed how it circumscribed police powers. He told Free Press: “It?s a victory for common sense in that, from the wider perspective, we can protect confidential sources ? that?s a big victory. “The High Court said production orders are allowed, but in my case they really do have to be precisely drafted, the police can?t just go on fishing expeditions. Protecting journalists? sources should be paramount, and now the High Court has said even in terrorism cases journalists are allowed to maintain confidential sources.” The NUJ also emphasised how the initial ruling sent a clear signal to police that they can?t see journalists as “simply another tool of intelligence gathering”. Speaking outside the High Court after the ruling was announced, general secretary Jeremy Dear said that Greater Manchester Police had “failed to recognise the special nature of journalistic material. Rather than take the time to consider what information they really needed, the police went fishing, hoping a general order would dredge up something of use.” Malik is an established freelance who has written extensively on terrorism for national newspapers and magazines. He is working on a book with the former Islamist Hassan Butt, who is linked to a forthcoming terrorism trail in Manchester in the autumn. Greater Manchester Police, who raided Malik’s home in March in pursuit of his notes, have also served draft production orders on the BBC, the Sunday Times, Prospect magazine and CBS demanding that they hand over materials they believe to be connected with the case. Malik’s High Court appeal is the first major test of the application to journalism of the Terrorism Act 2000, sections 19 and 38B (the latter was added in 2001) of which make it a criminal offence to withhold information. Formerly police had to satisfy a judge that the information they sought from a journalist was closely related to a “serious offence” ? the 2000 Act contains no such restriction. Malik said: “This makes it almost impossible for journalists working in the field of terrorism. It?s been a scythe hanging over our necks since it was enacted in 2000. Journalists in the field have been breaking the law and hoping they won?t get prosecuted.” He believes the issue came to a head because the police decided he would be in no position to defend himself, so they imposed a wide-ranging production order. But the NUJ and the Sunday Times agreed to pay his costs. There is a maliciousness in the police attack on Malik. As the court ruling states, the police interest in Malik is in what he can tell them about Hassan Butt, and not in whether he has committed offences under sections 19 or 38B. However, according to the Court, on May 9 Butt was arrested and extensively interviewed by police; he told them his earlier public statements about involvement in Al-Qaeda were untrue. He has now been released without charge. The case shows that journalists face enormous difficulties researching the roots of Islamist extremism in Britain. As a result, policies aimed at preventing terrorism will come to rely even further on the shadowy secret services and the ill-informed prejudices of the Murdoch press. Moreover, the line between legitimate support for resistance to western intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan and supporting “terrorism” will be further blurred, increasing the stigma attached to the Muslim community, where hostility to government foreign policy is strongest. A range of high profile figures and organisations have supported Malik?s case. On March 19 leading figures from journalism and civil liberties organisations, including Jonathan Dimbleby and Shami Chakrabarti, signed a letter to the Times warning of its implications.

What’s it got to do with RIPA?
2 Jul 2008
Liberty called for an overhaul of RIPA yesterday after the European Court of Human Rights slapped the UK government over the way it applied the UK’s previous interception legislation. But the Home Office today said it did not see that the judgement had any implications for the UK’s current suite of laws covering covert investigations. The court ruled that the UK had violated article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, by tapping communications of Liberty, along with British Irish Rights Watch and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties between 1990 and 1997. Article 8 quaintly demands the right to respect for private and family life and correspondence. The three human rights groups had claimed that the MoD?s Electronic Test Facility had eavesdropped on their phone, fax, email and data comms between 1990 and 1997. The three had first lodged complaints with the UK?s Interception of Communications Tribunal, the DPP and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to ?no avail? with local courts ruling ?there was no contravention to the Interception of Powers Act 1985?. Liberty et al then took the case to the European Court Human Rights, which after a mere nine years decided that there had indeed ?been an interference with their human rights as guaranteed by Article 8?. The court found that the 1985 Act gave the UK government ?virtually unlimited? discretion to intercept communications between the UK and an external receiver, and ?wide discretion? to decide which communications were subsequently listened to or read.? The government had guidelines to ensure a ?safeguard against abuse of power”, but these were not included in legislation, nor made available to the public. The court concluded that the UK?s 1985 interception law ?had not indicated with sufficient clarity… the scope or manner of the exercise of the very wide discretion of the conferred on the State to intercept and examine external communications? so as to guard against abuse of power. The 1985 Act and the 1990s eavesdropping on Liberty and its Irish counterparts came against the background of the IRA?s armed campaign against the British state. Over a decade on, and the 1985 Act has been replaced by RIPA. It has the same objective in detecting terrorism, serious crime and the like, but is more commonly known for being applied by local councils to people suspected to circumventing school applications procedures and not cleaning up after their dogs. Gareth Crossman, Liberty?s Policy Director, said in a statement yesterday the judgement highlighted the need for a review of RIPA. Liberty?s legal officer Alex Gask said: ?While secret surveillance is a valuable tool, the mechanisms for intercepting our telephone calls and emails should be as open and accountable as possible, and should ensure proportionate use of very wide powers.? Mark Kelly, Director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, said the judgement had clear implications for many other Council of Europe member states, including Ireland. ?Our lax data interception regime will require a thorough overhaul in order to ensure that it meets the standards required by the European Court of Human Rights under Article 8.? The Home Office was less vocal, saying it did not think the judgement had any implications for RIPA. While yesterday’s judgement concerned the 1985 Act, a Home Office spokesman said there were no legal challenges against RIPA.

From Triumph to Torture
2 Jul 2008
Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. Awarded in memory of the great US war correspondent, the prize goes to journalists who expose establishment propaganda, or “official drivel”, as Gellhorn called it. Mohammed shares the prize of £5,000 with Dahr Jamail. At 24, he is the youngest winner. His citation reads: “Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless.” The eldest of eight, Mohammed has seen most of his siblings killed or wounded or maimed. An Israeli bulldozer crushed his home while the family were inside, seriously injuring his mother. And yet, says a former Dutch ambassador, Jan Wijenberg, “he is a moderating voice, urging Palestinian youth not to court hatred but seek peace with Israel”. Getting Mohammed to London to receive his prize was a major diplomatic operation. Israel has perfidious control over Gaza’s borders, and only with a Dutch embassy escort was he allowed out. Last Thursday, on his return journey, he was met at the Allenby Bridge crossing (to Jordan) by a Dutch official, who waited outside the Israeli building, unaware Mohammed had been seized by Shin Bet, Israel’s infamous security organisation. Mohammed was told to turn off his mobile and remove the battery. He asked if he could call his embassy escort and was told forcefully he could not. A man stood over his luggage, picking through his documents. “Where’s the money?” he demanded. Mohammed produced some US dollars. “Where is the English pound you have?” “I realised,” said Mohammed, “he was after the award stipend for the Martha Gellhorn prize. I told him I didn’t have it with me. ‘You are lying’, he said. I was now surrounded by eight Shin Bet officers, all armed. The man called Avi ordered me to take off my clothes. I had already been through an x-ray machine. I stripped down to my underwear and was told to take off everything. When I refused, Avi put his hand on his gun. I began to cry: ‘Why are you treating me this way? I am a human being.’ He said, ‘This is nothing compared with what you will see now.’ He took his gun out, pressing it to my head and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear. He then made me do a concocted sort of dance. Another man, who was laughing, said, ‘Why are you bringing perfumes?’ I replied, ‘They are gifts for the people I love’. He said, ‘Oh, do you have love in your culture?’ “As they ridiculed me, they took delight most in mocking letters I had received from readers in England. I had now been without food and water and the toilet for 12 hours, and having been made to stand, my legs buckled. I vomited and passed out. All I remember is one of them gouging, scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender flesh beneath my eyes. He scooped my head and dug his fingers in near the auditory nerves between my head and eardrum. The pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time. Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing into the hard floor. I lay there for over an hour. The room became a menagerie of pain, sound and terror.” An ambulance was called and told to take Mohammed to a hospital, but only after he had signed a statement indemnifying the Israelis from his suffering in their custody. The Palestinian medic refused, courageously, and said he would contact the Dutch embassy escort. Alarmed, the Israelis let the ambulance go. The Israeli response has been the familiar line that Mohammed was “suspected” of smuggling and “lost his balance” during a “fair” interrogation, Reuters reported yesterday. Israeli human rights groups have documented the routine torture of Palestinians by Shin Bet agents with “beatings, painful binding, back bending, body stretching and prolonged sleep deprivation”. Amnesty has long reported the widespread use of torture by Israel, whose victims emerge as mere shadows of their former selves. Some never return. Israel is high in an international league table for its murder of journalists, especially Palestinian journalists, who receive barely a fraction of the kind of coverage given to the BBC’s Alan Johnston. The Dutch government says it is shocked by Mohammed Omer’s treatment. The former ambassador Jan Wijenberg said: “This is by no means an isolated incident, but part of a long-term strategy to demolish Palestinian social, economic and cultural life … I am aware of the possibility that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or bomb attack in the near future.” While Mohammed was receiving his prize in London, the new Israeli ambassador to Britain, Ron Proser, was publicly complaining that many Britons no longer appreciated the uniqueness of Israel’s democracy. Perhaps they do now. johnpilger.com

The privileged prisoner of Black Beach
2 Jul 2008
It is listed in one of the world?s top ten most notorious jails. Just the name Black Beach sends shivers down the spine of any convicted felon. The jail in Malabo, in Equatorial Guinea in central Africa has a gruesome reputation. Torture and starvation of inmates is said to be routine. The human rights organization Amnesty International describes incarceration in the prison as ?a slow, lingering death sentence?. One political campaigner from the country, released in 2006 said bluntly. ?Prisoners are tortured and just disappear and die. They weight their bodies with rocks and throw them in the sea. Their families never know what happened to them.? Equatorial Guinea is run by the iron-fist of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who seized power in a coup in 1979. Human rights groups say Mr Obiang?s corrupt regime is one of the worst abusers of rights in Africa. His reputation is fierce and he is said to enjoy eating the brains and testicles of his political opponents. This gruesome fate is unlikely to meet Black Beach?s most famous current inmate, the British mercenary Simon Mann, who had admitted to being central to an international plot in 2004 to overthrow the government of this oil-rich state. In his show trial this week, Mann pleaded guilty to being a member of a coup attempt to replace Mr Obiang with Severo Moto, an exiled opposition leader living in Spain. It was back in March 2004 that Mann and 69 South African mercenaries were arrested at Harare airport with a plane load of arms en route to Equatorial Guinea. Mann, who is a soldier of fortune, was educated at Britain?s top private school, Eton and later joined the country?s most elite regiment, the SAS. He was sentenced to seven years in Zimbabwe, which was subsequently reduced to four, although he was then transferred to Black Beach earlier this year. The bespectacled Mann has consistently tried to underplay his importance in the coup with a view of getting a reduced sentence. His friends try and portray him as an ?English gentleman?. One profile of Mann on the BBC last week, included the quote calling him a “humane man, but an adventurer… very English, a romantic, tremendously good company”. Even his defence lawyer claimed last week that a ?gentleman? who had collaborated with the court ?out of a sincere desire to repair the damage done to our people?. But this ?English gentleman? has also managed to get privileged treatment at prison, having his own his own cell, an exercise machine, books and magazines. He is allowed to make regular calls home and is said to lunches most days with the country?s Minister of Security, with special food and wine delivered to the prison. The simple fact is that Mann collaborated with the Equatorial regime as he does not want to spend years rotting in an African jail. Mann has claimed that his collaboration is out of concern for the people of Equatorial Guinea. But the bottom line is that he is a hired killer who has made millions out of being a soldier of fortune in Africa and elsewhere. In the early nineties he set up Executive Outcomes, that made millions protecting oil installations from rebels in Angola. He then set up another company, Sandline International, which shipped arms to Sierra Leone in flagrant contravention of a UN embargo. As part of his strategy to gain freedom, Mann has named what he called the main backers of the plot, who remain at large. Speaking in court, Mann alleged Ely Calil, the British-based secretive Lebanese tycoon, was known to the coup team as “the cardinal?. ?Calil was very much the boss. So nothing could happen without Calil telling me yes or no,? Mann told the trial. Calil, who is reported to have invested more than $700,000 in the coup attempt, has always denied the allegations. Another person named by Mann is Mark Thatcher, son of Britain?s ex-Prime Minister. Thatcher met Mann when they both lived in South Africa. Thatcher was arrested after the aborted coup, where he struck a plea bargain with the South African authorities, fined $450,000 and given a four-year suspended sentence for ?unwittingly? investing in the plot. A rather unflattering profile of Thatcher in the British press recently said he was ?Famous for getting lost during the Paris-Dakar motor rally and making his mother cry in public, notorious for shamelessly exploiting her name to further dodgy business ventures, renowned for his rudeness, arrogance and pomposity, and no stranger to controversy, but none of his previous dubious escapades can compare with his reckless involvement in an ill-fated plot to oust the offal-loving president of Equatorial Guinea.? Thatcher, like Mann, has always tried to downplay his involvement in the coup too. When Thatcher was arrested in South Africa, he said: ?I have no involvement in any alleged coup in Equatorial Guinea and I reject totally all suggestions to the contrary.? Giving evidence last week, Mann contradicted this by saying Thatcher was ?not just an investor. He came on board completely and became part of the management team.” Leaked documents suggest Thatcher was involved, something the plotters wanted to keep quiet. One document, that looked at ?threats?, was headed by the initials ?MT?, which the South African police argue stood for Mark Thatcher. It said: ?If involvement known, rest of us, and project, likely to be screwed as a side- issue to people screwing him. Would particularly add to a campaign, post-event, to remove us.? Moreover, telephone records obtained by a private detective working for the government of Equatorial Guinea, show Mark Thatcher and Mann speaking ?with increasing frequency? in the days before the coup. Other documents uncovered by the South African security services show the extent to which the coup plotters were going to exploit the resources of Equatorial Guinea. The plotters actually set up a trading company after the coup, called the Bight of Benin Company (BBC).The company would have controlled the country?s economy, its oil reserves, army and police, as a ?private fiefdom?, modeled on the British colonial company the East India Company. The documents suggest that BBC was to have ?sole right to have physical or other access? to the new president Moto. It would have been the only company that could ?make agreements or contracts? with the new regime. The plotters also knew about how they would have to spin their coup to the outside world. They planned a massive public relations exercise to avoid ?unfavourable scrutiny?. Part of this campaign would have been to trick the outside world that the new regime would be ?transparent? over its policies, including on human rights. However this ?transparency? campaign was to be followed by one of ?disinformation? to convince outsiders that the Americans were behind the coup, and therefore to ?back off.? ?It is potentially a very lucrative game,? one document said: ?We should expect bad behaviour; disloyalty; rampant individual greed; irrational behaviour (kids in toyshop type); back-stabbing . . . and similar ungentlemanly activities.? The truth is that, despite how supporters are trying to spin this story, Mann is no gentleman. He is a soldier of war. Mark Thatcher is no gentleman either, whose controversial business career in arms and oil has been linked with scandal. In the early eighties Thatcher was rumoured to have been paid a $2 million commission for the construction of a university in Oman, which had been negotiated by his mother, then Prime Minster. Three years later he was said to have received $24 million from the biggest arms deal in history, the $80 billion Al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia, also signed by his mother. President Obiang?s government has now issued an international warrant for Thatcher, who the President calls a ?dirty player who lives his life getting himself involved in all sorts of dubious deals that are of benefit to himself?. Thatcher remains in hiding in a secure gated residence in South Spain. He is said to be running out of places to hide: South Africa has evicted him, the US would arrest him, France and Switzerland have said he is not welcome. If Thatcher was arrested, the chances of a fair trial in Equatorial Guinea are as remote as free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. But it is time the world really found out how the son of a British Prime Minister helped finance this dirty plot and his exact involvement. Maybe Thatcher should volunteer to be tried in neutral country. If convicted though he should not be given any privileged treatment. Neither should Mann, when he is sentanced either. Both men were reportedly set to make millions from this venture. They gambled and they lost. As Mann has said ?You go tiger shooting and you don’t expect the tiger to win.? Well this time the tiger won. They can sit there together with their tails between their legs.

Bush Is Trying To Impose A Classic Colonial Status on Iraq
2 Jul 2008
Whatever the Iraq war was about, we were assured, it definitely wasn’t about oil. Tony Blair called the idea a “conspiracy theory”. It was about democracy and dictatorship, weapons of mass destruction and human rights, anything but oil. Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, insisted the conflict had “literally nothing to do with oil”. When Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, wrote last autumn, “Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he was treated as if he were some senile old gent who’d embarrassingly lost the plot. That argument is going to be a good deal harder to make from next week, when four of the western world’s largest oil corporations are due to sign contracts for the renewed exploitation of Iraq’s vast reserves. Initially, these are to be two-year deals to boost production in Iraq’s largest oilfields. But not only did the four energy giants — BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Total — write their own contracts with the Iraqi government, an unheard-of practice: they have also reportedly secured rights of first refusal on the far more lucrative 30-year production contracts expected once a new US-sponsored oil law is passed, allowing a wholesale western takeover. Big Oil is back with a vengeance. It’s a similar story when it comes to the future of the US occupation itself. The last thing on anyone’s mind, we were told when the tanks rolled in, was permanent US control, let alone the recolonisation of Iraq. This was about the Iraqis finally getting a chance to run their own affairs in freedom. But five years on, George Bush and Dick Cheney are putting the screws on their Green Zone government to sign a secret deal for indefinite military occupation, which would effectively reduce Iraq to a long-term vassal state. In April, I was leaked a draft copy of this “strategic framework agreement”, intended to replace the existing UN mandate at the end of the year. Details of the document, which came from a source at the heart of the Iraqi government, were published in the Guardian — including indefinite authorisation for the US to “conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security”. Since then, much more has emerged about the accompanying “status of forces agreement” the US administration wants to impose: including more than 50 US military bases, full control of Iraqi airspace, legal immunity for US military and private security firms, and the right to conduct armed operations throughout the country without consulting the Iraqi government. This goes far beyond other such agreements the US has around the world and would shackle Iraq with a permanent puppet status. Not surprisingly, it has led to uproar in the country and opposition in the US, where congress will be denied a vote on the arrangement because the administration has chosen not to call it a treaty. But it also evokes powerful memories in Iraq, which has been down this road before. After Britain invaded and occupied Iraq during the first world war, it imposed a strikingly similar treaty on its puppet government in 1930 in preparation for the country’s nominal independence. Just as in George Bush’s version, Britain awarded itself military bases, the right to conduct military operations, and legal immunity for its forces — though the proposed new US powers and restrictions on Iraqi sovereignty go even further than in the pre-war colonial treaty. To add to this sense of imperial revival, the four oil companies now preparing to return in triumph to Iraq were the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company, which Britain gave a free hand in the 1920s to dine off Iraq’s wealth in a famously exploitative deal. The Anglo-Iraqi treaty and those bitterly unjust oil concessions dominated Iraqi politics for decades, feeding riots, uprisings and coups until the monarchy was overthrown, the tables turned on the oil companies and the British were finally sent packing by the radical nationalist General Qasim in 1958. The 50th anniversary of the 1958 revolution appropriately falls next month. But Bush and Cheney seem increasingly determined to force through both their security agreement and the stalled law for the privatisation of Iraq’s oil industry before the US election. The signs are that, despite intense Iraqi opposition, a combination of strong-arm tactics, bribery and some watering down of the most extreme US demands may yet secure the full imperial package. When Bush contradicted Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki earlier this month on the occupation deal and predicted: “If I were a betting man, we’ll reach an agreement with the Iraqis,” he sounded as if he knew what he was talking about — rather as he did when he explained a couple of weeks ago that he was “confident” Gordon Brown would not after all be cutting British troop numbers in Basra according to any fixed timetable. Meanwhile, Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, is suddenly sounding similarly confident about “progress” on the oil law because “the Americans are very keen”. Perhaps they are all coming to believe the Bush administration propaganda that the surge has succeeded and Iraq is starting to “fix itself” in time for the US election, as the Economist’s cover story put it last week. Much is still being made of the decline in US casualties and resistance attacks to 2004 levels, even though the factors behind that drop are widely acknowledged to be contingent and precarious. Given the carnage of the past few days alone — including seven US soldiers killed since the weekend and a Baghdad car bomb that butchered 65 people — as well as this week’s withering US Government Accountability Office report on the administration’s claims of “progress” in Iraq, any other view would seem perverse. What is certain is that, if Bush’s blueprint for indefinite foreign rule in Iraq and the takeover of its oil is forced down the throats of the Iraqi people, resistance and bloodshed will increase. Of course, it’s true that the US and Britain didn’t invade Iraq only for its oil. It was a projection of American power in the world’s most strategically sensitive region, with oil at its heart, which has brought catastrophe to Iraq and great danger to the Middle East and the wider world. That’s why the struggle to restore Iraq’s independence matters far beyond its borders — it is a global necessity.

Zimbabwe election: US and UK move to impose sanctions
2 Jul 2008
Robert Mugabe was inaugurated for a sixth term as President of Zimbabwe on Sunday, following an election campaign characterised by government backed violence and intimidation. Mugabe, standing for the ruling ZANU-PF, claimed to have received more than 85 percent of the vote. But his only opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had withdrawn from the campaign because of the level of violence and intimidation. International observers condemned the elections. ?The current atmosphere prevailing in the country did not give rise to the conduct of free, fair and credible elections,? said Marwick Khumalo head of the Pan-African Parliament monitoring team. Observers from Zimbabwe?s neighbours in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) concurred. ?The elections,? the SADC observers concluded, ?did not represent the will of the people of Zimbabwe.? The elections were ?worse than those we witnessed in Angola in 1992, after decades of war, and are not credible,? one SADC observer said. Zimbabwean observers called off their plans to monitor the polls because it was too dangerous. A government-sponsored campaign of beatings, kidnappings and murders has left 104 people dead and 3,500 injured. Doctors who have been treating the wounded say that this is just the tip of the iceberg. ?What we are seeing is probably 10 percent of what has actually happened,? a doctor who wished to remain anonymous told reporters. He said that the violence was the ?worst the country has witnessed.? The injuries he had treated were more serious than those experienced during the liberation war of the 1970s. ?This is much, much more severe,? the doctor said, ?We are not seeing simple fractures, we are seeing bones smashed into 20 pieces. People being forced to walk on burning coals, having scalding water poured over them and their wounds poisoned.? Marwick Kumhalo said that monitors had evidence of violence and intimidation all over the country in the run up to the election. The turnout, he said, was low. In Mashonaland the number of votes announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) exceeds the number of registered voters. The ZEC claimed that the turn out was comparable to that in the first round of the elections in March. But some polling stations in Bulawayo reported that they did not receive a single voter. In Harare, the capital, few voters were seen. Many registered voters said that they did not intend to vote. There were a large number of spoilt ballot papers. Some had obscene language directed at Mugabe. Turnout was very low in major urban areas. Voters in those areas can expect retribution. Reprisals have already been reported in the working class suburb of Chitungwiza outside Harare. In the wake of the election the repression is continuing. Anyone who does not have the red ink stained finger that shows they voted is immediately at risk. The ZEC has handed the details of polling patterns in each electoral ward to the government. Security forces and government-backed militias will be able to target voters in wards that did not endorse Mugabe. Leaked minutes from the Joint Operations Command (JOC), which has been coordinating the coercion, indicate that the regime has decided to wipe out the opposition MDC. The UK based Independent has seen sworn affidavits from reserve bank officials who transported money to regional organisers to finance the campaign of violence against the opposition. There are reports that re-education camps at which opposition voters have been tortured are being re-supplied for a second phase of the campaign. An opposition activist told reporters that local businesses in Chinhoyi in Mashonaland West are being forced to make contributions to fund the repression. ?These camps are now regrouping. They?re going to unleash another terror campaign,? he said. Mugabe went almost directly from his inauguration to the African Union (AU) summit in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. The response of other African leaders to his presence was muted. They are reluctant to criticise a fellow African leader in public. Many of them have records of repression as bad, or worse than Mugabe?s. Other African leaders, such as the summit?s host Muhammad Hosni Mubarak, are notoriously corrupt. Mubarak is accused of rigging the 2005 election. These were the first multi-party elections to take place since he came to power in 1981. He has maintained a state of emergency rule for the last 25 years. Mubarak and his fellow African leaders have no more desire to allow democratic rights to their people than Mugabe. All the African rulers at the Sharm el Sheikh summit have for the most part enriched a tiny elite at the expense of the majority of the population. But these regimes value their relationship with the United States and are coming under intense pressure to isolate and condemn Mugabe. Egyptian prisons, for example, have proved invaluable in providing a secret base for the torture of US detainees in the so-called war on terror. The Italian authorities are currently investigating the ?extraordinary rendition? of Abu Omar, an Egyptian cleric living as a refugee in Italy. He was seized by the CIA from the street in Milan in 2003. He was then taken to the US airbase at Brescia and flown to Ramstein in Germany from where he was taken to an Egyptian prison and tortured. Even the Sudanese government, which is regularly condemned in the US press, has proved useful in intelligence matters to the US government. Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya was recruited to the US ?war on terror? in 2004. The African states may well acquiesce to US demands on Mugabe, if they want to maintain their favoured status as allies in the war on terror. Zimbabwe has become something of test case for US power in Africa, which has suffered a serious setback following the military debacle in Iraq and the emergence of China as a major player on the continent. ?I would suggest that one not take from the soft words in an open plenary as a reflection of the deep concern of leaders here of the situation in Zimbabwe,? said US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Fraser. ?I would expect them to have very, very strong words for him.? Her remarks were as much an instruction to the African leaders as a comment for journalists. The US, Britain and the European Union have made it clear that they will not recognise Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe. Visiting Beijing, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for China to support an arms embargo against Zimbabwe. But Chinese Foreign Secretary Yang Jiechi insisted that the only way forward was for the government of Zimbabwe to enter into talks with the opposition. It seems that a call for a negotiated settlement and a power-sharing government like that established in Kenya following the disputed election earlier this year may emerge from the AU summit. On the second day of the summit the South African paper Business Day reported that President Thabo Mbeki was close to brokering a deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. Even if Thabo Mbeki succeeds in establishing a government of national unity, that is unlikely to be the end of the matter. The US and UK seem to have already rejected this option. An article in the Financial Times on 25 June posed a somewhat different scenario. The article?s authors reflected on the recent pronouncements by a series of African leaders and former leaders denouncing Mugabe. Rising commodity prices and economic liberalisation has ensured that growth rates across much of Africa remain at 5 percent, the article said. But food prices and transport costs are rising fast, it warned. Under these circumstances, Mugabe?s intransigence may have unforeseen effects. ?Not only has Robert Mugabe put southern Africa in jeopardy. Like ripples on a pond, which can drown a man already up to his nose in water, his actions can strain an uneasy peace in Kenya, affect food shipments to refugees in east Africa and add to the trials of Britain?s beleaguered government.? The article was written by former Africa editor of the Financial Times Michael Holman and Dr Gregg Mills, director of the Brenthurst Foundation, a think tank founded by the Oppenheimer family to further the economic development of Africa. These two old Africa hands proceeded to imagine a scenario in which attacks on whites might lead the UK to attempt an evacuation of its nationals and a convoy to the South African border might be attacked. Zimbabwe?s second city of Bulawayo, the article suggests, might become a centre of resistance and railway connections might be severed. Mbeki might offer Mugabe sanctuary in South Africa, but President of the ANC Jacob Zuma and the South African trade unions might respond by organising ?countrywide protests.? In the midst of all that, Holman and Mills imagine, ?Somali-based terrorists bomb a tourist hotel? while in Kenya further ethnic riots disrupt the power-sharing government and hamper relief to refuges in central Africa. This could be the plot of a political thriller rather than an article in a sober financial journal. But the fact that it appears in the Financial Times and is the work of two senior commentators on Africa gives it a certain weight. Such is the fragility of the world situation following the credit crunch and the still expanding speculative bubble in commodity prices that Mugabe?s attempt to hang on to power threatens to destabilise not only southern Africa, but the entire continent. In recognising that threat, Holman and Mills evince a desire to seize the moment and precipitate a crisis that they envisage to be already on the horizon. How far the US and UK intelligence agencies would be behind the disastrous scenarios that Holman and Mills draft out, we may never know. But it is revealing that such influential commentators assume only a bloody outcome is possible in Zimbabwe. The article is an indication of the extent to which the attitude of the US and UK towards Zimbabwe has shifted. At present it is accepted that the US and UK cannot intervene openly in Zimbabwe. As the Economist recently said, ?other methods, with Africans to the fore, must be tried first.? But the scenario drafted out by Mills and Holman would provide a pretext for American and British intervention. An editorial in the Financial Times expressed the western powers? dissatisfaction with Mbeki?s attempts to establish a government of national unity in Zimbabwe. ?Thabo Mbeki, South Africa?s president, who has sought to resolve the crisis with a Kenyan-style national unity government, should accept he has failed. There is no way any western nation will send international aid to a regime that has Mr. Mugabe or ZANU-PF at the helm. An MDC government that included a small ZANU-PF contingent would be an acceptable price for ending the violence, but is unlikely to happen.? The Financial Times called for tighter sanctions and demanded that ?Western financial institutions should be debarred from operating in Harare.? US and UK policy is moving rapidly in this direction. President George Bush announced that he had instructed Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to ?develop sanctions against this illegitimate Government of Zimbabwe and those who support it.? The giant mining company Anglo-American has come under intense pressure to abandon its planned investment in a Zimbabwe platinum mine. Barclays bank is coming under pressure to cease business in Zimbabwe after more than a century. The UK-based supermarket chain Tesco has announced that it has stopped sourcing goods from Zimbabwe. These economic measures and the proposed sanctions will inevitably have more impact on the population of Zimbabwe than on the ruling elite, who have long since established their own secret channels for funding. Tesco, Barclays and Anglo-American are major employers in what is left of the formal economy in Zimbabwe. Sanctions will mean that it will become even more difficult for hospitals to source medicines and for ordinary people unconnected with the regime to buy fuel. As the West tightens the screws on the Zimbabwean economy, more people will flock across the country?s borders to escape poverty and malnutrition. The experience of the recent election has demonstrated that Morgan Tsvangirai?s opposition offers no alternative to Mugabe or to Western domination. From the outset, Tsvangirai?s party has been a pliant tool of the West and the international financial institutions. Tsvangirai?s pusillanimous performance in the second round of the presidential elections seems to have convinced any potential backers in the West that he is useless for their purposes. He announced his withdrawal from the election last week with a letter to the Guardian in which he appealed for international military intervention. Within days he had denied that he ever sent that article to the paper. On its part the Guardian, while loath to discredit Tsvangirai, had to point out that they had received the article from the usual sources. The ?usual sources? turned out to be a ?media consultant? who had provided 400 pieces under Tsvangirai?s byline for the Guardian, the Melbourne Age and the Washington Post. Inadvertently, Tsvangirai had admitted far more than he intended about the nature of his campaign and the extent to which it is run by big business interests and is far removed from the interests of the people who are being beaten and killed in Zimbabwe.

Keep Tyne and Wear Metro Public, says RMT
1 Jul 2008
The Tyne and Wear Metro is a public-sector success story and should be kept that way, delegates at the annual conference of Britain’s biggest rail union insisted today. As RMT’s AGM called on the government to implement Labour policy on public ownership, RMT general secretary Bob Crow and Northern TUC secretary Kevin Rowan issued a joint plea for an end to the threat to fragment and privatise the northeast’s Metro network. Letters sent today to Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly and Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive (Nexus) director-general Bernard Garner point out that the Metro is already achieving record levels of punctuality and ridership. The letters express the concern that funding for a welcome upgrade of the network has been made conditional on splitting up and privatising the Metro’s operations and infrastructure. Nexus bulletins indicate that the government has insisted on the break-up, overruling the PTE’s preferred option of maintaining Metro as a ‘vertically integrated’ railway. “The model now being proposed for the Metro is in danger of repeating the mistakes of railway privatisation,” Bob Crow and Kevin Rowan say. “Safety will be threatened as the Metro will be fragmented into different sectors, meaning less effective control and private companies cutting corners to save money. “Fragmentation will lead to a less efficient, more expensive railway which is why Nexus were originally opposed to the break up of the Metro and why we remain opposed to it. “Large amounts of fare revenue and public subsidy will be used to pay dividends to shareholders instead of being used to improve the Metro for the benefit of passengers and the wider community in the North East. “And of course Metro workers’ pensions, jobs and conditions will be under threat as the private sector tries to maximise profits at the expense of Metro workers,” the letters say.

Support and strength
1 Jul 2008
Unite general secretary Derek Simpson hit the nail on the head in arguing: “If people feel that they can get the kind of support and strength that they need from a union, I don’t think they mind what you call it.” Trade unions exist to do a basic job – to defend workers’ pay and conditions. They can and do take on other responsibilities and fringe benefits – everything from credit cards to concessionary insurance rates; but securing the best price for members’ labour power and safeguarding their health, safety and workplace respect is always the priority. If Unite members are convinced that merging with the large north American union USW will assist them in that task, they will jump at the opportunity. And, certainly, at a time when a relatively small number of transnational corporations are dominating global production, anything that minimises the prospect of national trade unions accepting the “reality” of a race to the bottom to price members into a job is welcome. These corporations must be laughing all the way to the bank to see unions in one country after another agreeing to cut corporate costs; basic pay, fringe benefits, overtime rates etc – in a bid to persuade them not to relocate overseas. If international union mergers can ensure a co-ordinated principled approach, they can only be positive. However, there are two major phenomena that will work to undermine the principles of internationalism and working class solidarity. One is the existence of stultifying anti-trade union legislation, especially in Britain and the US, and the other is trade unions’ poverty of ambition. Solidarity action is specifically outlawed in the US and Britain, forcing workers in struggle to fight employers with one hand behind their backs. Employers can ship in scabs from elsewhere in the country or from overseas. They can act in concert to undermine industrial action. But woe betide any set of workers who act out of natural decency to try to tilt the balance of power in favour of members of their own union who are out on strike. Think back to the efforts by workers at Heathrow airport who showed solidarity with the Gate Gourmet strikers and the storm of rage generated by employers, the media and the Labour government. New Labour is now on the bones of its backside, abandoned by increasing numbers of its once generous boardroom donors and sinking into debt-laden oblivion. Unions are ready and willing to bail Labour out, but they still seem to accept that Labour is only electable if it pursues Tory-style policies and gives up on any demands for real justice. And previous union leaders who have copped the ermine, such as Baroness Prosser, are the most strident in rejecting the case for trade union freedom and for close Labour-union links. The ability of a merged Unite-USW international union to punch its weight and to affect salaries, conditions and investment policies on a global basis will be enhanced by the capacity of its constituent parts to operate freely and effectively on their home turf. A trade union freedom Bill in Britain is not only a prerequisite for effective international trade union solidarity but for domestic social justice too.