ECONOMY-JAPAN: Some Good Figures Buoy Hopes for Recovery

A dramatic jump in corporate productivity rates has raised hopes here that the long-awaited turnaround in Japan's economy, the second largest in the world, has finally begun.

INDIA: Trout Survives Kashmir’s Hostile Environment

Shipped out from Scotland to north India's Himalayas over a century ago, Kashmir's trout has survived several wars, a 15-year long armed rebellion and is now ready to be exported back to Europe.

Ecobreves – PERU: Millions Needed to Clean Up Mining Waste

Peru needs to spend some 200 million dollars to recuperate the environmental losses caused by mines that are now inactive or abandoned, according to government sources.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Eco-Manual for Journalists

The Honduran Environmental Prosecutor has published a manual for journalists that explains the agency's legal and judicial procedures in handling environmental crimes, as well as actions for protecting ecosystems.

Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Fire-Fighting Funds Embezzled

Guatemala was not able to carry out its plans to fight forest fires in 2003 because 62 percent of the million-dollar budget was misappropriated by the officials of the previous administration, the new presidential spokesman, Eduardo González, told Tierramérica.

Ecobreves – NORTH AMERICA: Transgenic Maize Under Scrutiny

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of North America will hold a meeting Mar. 11 in Mexico of representatives from civil society, government and academia to study the contamination of Mexican maize with genetically modified material.

Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Glyphosate in Nature Reserves

Colombia's Environment Minister Sandra Suárez will have to explain to her country's Congress the U.S. financing received for spraying glyphosate herbicide on illegal coca plantations in nature reserves.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Limits for Corvina Catches

Argentina and Uruguay have banned the use of trawl nets to fish for 'corvina rubia' in the Rio de la Plata estuary that the two countries share. The ban lasts from October to March and is intended to protect this species that has begun to suffer the consequences of overexploitation.

Animal Welfare, Human Welfare

More than 450 delegates from 70 countries took part in the Global Conference on Animal Welfare, in Paris last week. Inadequate conditions in managing farm animals could be the cause of diseases like avian flu, which is currently taking its toll on the poultry industry in Asian countries.

'Precaution should be the new paradigm for conservation'

Award-winning Argentine biologist Claudio Campagna is promoting a new model for preserving the whale habitat of the Patagonian coast.

Latin America's Ailing Environment

Latin Americans lose as many as 11 years off their lives due to environmental degradation, says a new study by the United Nations Environment Program.

SPAIN, NOT IRAQ, PROVIDES MODEL FOR FIGHTING TERRORISM

President elect Zapatero\'s intention to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq unless the UN takes over is both logical and coherent, writes Mario Soares, President of Portugal from 1986-1996. In this article, Soares writes that brute force alone cannot defeat terrorism. We must study its causes and understand the reasons for its influence over desperate and humiliated populations. The March 11th attacks demonstrate that global terrorism still has resources and can broaden its scope of action. Those who believed that \'\'the war on terror\'\', to use Bush\'s phrase, could be won by defeating and occupying Iraq and, later, by capturing Saddam Hussein are unable of explaining what just happened. The fact that today\'s world is interdependent means that we are all responsible. Solidarity and social justice cannot remain mere words. As ever, everything depends on whether we decide to improve the troubled world in which we have to live. Zapatero\'s victory reinforces those who are working for peace, social justice, dialogue, human rights, and international law. This is the way to fight terrorism.

IRAQ: ONLY THE UN CAN END THE CATASTROPHE

The current debate about the UN\'s ability to rectify the disasters left by the war in Iraq, rebuild the country, and lead it to democracy omits a fundamental fact: that the strength or weakness of the UN depends solely on the will of and resources provided by its member states, writes Flavio Lotti, secretary general of the Round Table for Peace. Only intervention by the UN in Iraq, with the appropriate powers and resources, is capable of ending the rampant violence, preventing civil war, depriving terrorism of space and support, and protecting the human rights of the Iraqis. In this article, the author writes that the US plan for reconstruction was very efficient in its destruction of existing institutions and the armed forces and in privatising state industries, but it has been a complete failure in building a new democratic state. Similarly, the security concept of the occupation troops and its implementation --in part delegated to private and mercenary companies-- simply does not address the needs of the civilian population. A radical change in policy is urgently needed that gives the UN intervention in Iraq centrality, credibility, and support.

THE WHITE CURSE

On the first day of this year, freedom in this world turned 200. But no one noticed, or almost no one. A few days later the country where this birth occurred, Haiti, found itself in the media spotlight, but not for the anniversary of universal freedom but because there had been a bloodbath that culminated in the ouster of President Aristide, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and novelist and author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\'. But the international experts are far more destructive than invading troops, Galeano writes in this column. Placed under strict orders from the World Bank and IMF, Haiti obeyed every instruction. The government paid what it was told to even if it meant there would be neither bread nor salt. Their credit was frozen despite the fact the state had been dismantled and the subsidies and tariffs that had protected national production had been eliminated. Rice farmers, once the majority, soon became beggars or boat people. Many have ended in the depths of the Caribbean, and more are following them to the bottom, only these shipwreck victims aren\'t Cuban so their plight never makes the papers. Today Haiti imports all of its rice from the US, where international experts, who are rather distracted people, forgot to prohibit tariffs and subsidies to protect national production.

AGRIBUSINESS, THE PATENT SYSTEM, AND BIOPIRACY

India is being swept by an epidemic of biopiracy -- the patenting of indigenous biodiversity and traditional knowledge by global corporations, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment who received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. First it was the neem plant, then basmati rice. Now our wheat has been patented, Shiva writes in this article for IPS. Biopiracy is both legally and morally wrong. By allowing indigenous innovations to be treated as \'\'inventions\'\' of the patent \'\'owner\'\', biopiracy patents amount to the outright theft of India\'s scientific, intellectual, and creative achievements and must be challenged. The economic consequences are serious. In the short run, a biopiracy patent robs us of markets overseas for our unique products. In the long run, if these trends are not challenged and intellectual property rights systems changed to prevent biopiracy, we will end up paying royalties for what belongs to us and is necessary for everyday survival.

NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS?

Global terrorism represents an absolute horror which must be fought with the greatest determination, courage, and force, but it must also be fought with intelligence, information, and knowledge, writes Mario Soares, president of Portugal between 1986-1996. In this analysis, the author argues that military force is necessary but not sufficient. To deal with this new and complex phenomenon born of Islamic fanaticism, we must consider other components, including the profound humiliation by the West felt by the populations that have been permeated by terrorism, and the socio-economic conditions they live under. Regarding the Bush strategy, it is worth asking whether it is true, as is often repeated, that democracies don\'t negotiate with terrorists? History is full of examples to the contrary, including two from the past year involving Bush and the UK and Libya and North Korea. Soares calls for a dialogue with Islamic scientists, theologians, intellectuals, and political scientists as the correct way to begin negotiations -- though from a position of strength, noting that negotiation does not mean capitulation, much less abdication.

BLAMING AL QAEDA FOR SPANISH ELECTION NOT IN US INTEREST

The right\'s diagnosis of the defeat of Spain\'s Popular Party as capitulation of Spanish voters to terrorism may console the outgoing prime minister and Mariano Rajoy but it badly serves the true interests of the United States, writes Joaquin Roy, Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the European Union Centre of the University of Miami. In this analysis, the author writes that the US government, before and after November, can be reassured by what the new Spanish administration will offer: unlimited cooperation, on equal footing, in the fight against terrorism, domestic and international, in coordination with Spain\'s natural partners in the European Union. Spain\'s place in the world will continue to be the same it has occupied since the 80s: it is a member of NATO, contributed to UN peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Central America, and participated in the Gulf War. Spain will stay (why not?) in Iraq, but only under a UN mandate, which will be implemented with the requisite backing of a stronger and more integrated European Union, anchored in a \'\'new\'\' Old Europe.

THE REAL LESSON OF MARCH 11TH: EVERYONE TO IRAQ

With all due respect to the Spanish electorate and those citizens mourning their dead, I believe that socialist leader Jose Luis Zapatero\'s position on withdrawing his country\'s troops from Iraq constitutes a victory for Al Qaeda, writes Emma Bonino, deputy in the European Parliament and leader of the Transnational Radical Party. In this article Bonino writes that March 11th provided irrefutable proof that Al Qaeda represents a real threat to us all. Certain leaders of the European left have stated -- involuntarily, I am sure-- that they share the position of Zapatero. Perhaps they haven\'t grasped how this announcement might be read and acted upon by the terrorists themselves. In sharp contrast to Zapatero\'s position, the correct response to March 11th should be, \'\'We will all go to Baghdad,\'\' with the determination to assume a concrete role in the fight against terrorism. Only in this manner can the calls for UN and/or NATO involvement have real meaning and effect, as expressions of shared responsibility.

AN INTERVIEW WITH SAVATER: AS EUROPE BROADENS, IS SPAIN DIVIDING?

Fernando Savater is thrilled to be back in Rome, where he has the luxury of anonymity. The philosopher- activist director of the Basta Ya movement, which represents the victims of terrorism in the Basque Country, can\'t take a step in Spain without a security escort. A professor of history and the author of numerous books, he is in Rome to participate in the colloquium \'\'Europe: A Nation of States or a State of Nations\'\'. He agreed to speak with IPS about the prospects for the upcoming elections in Spain, which will be held 14 March, and the future of the Basque Country.

AN ATTACK ON THE HEART OF MADRID, AND FREE SOCIETY

The commuter trains that pass through eastern Madrid on their way to Atocha station are one of the primary routes for the daily influx of thousands of students and workers into the city, writes Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon, mayor of Madrid. In this article, the author cites Madrid as a historic bastion of freedom that now defends freedom for all Spaniards with the same determination to not give in to the oppressor that has always given us courage. We must denounce not only those who were materially responsible for this collective assassination, which has already been recognised as a crime against humanity, but also those who are intellectually complicit, who with their silence or indifference contribute equally to make such acts possible. The best way to not give in to the ferocious attack inflicted on us yesterday as members of a free society consists in not losing sight of these people who yesterday, as on any day, made their way to Madrid to give the best of themselves, not to be remembered as victims but as what they were: passengers on trains that carried the life of the city.