THE PROBLEM WITH SOYA

Fifty years ago no culture in the world ate soya. Today it is in 60 percent of all processed foods, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment who received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. In this analysis, Shiva writes that the promotion of soya in food is a huge experiment promoted with USD 13 billion of subsidies from the US government between 1998 and 2004, and USD 80 million a year from the American Soya Industry. Agro-giants Cargill and ADM are now destroying the Amazon to grow this crop. This is in turn destroying the planet\'s climate. In depending on monocultures, the food system is being made increasingly dependent on fossil fuels -- for synthetic fertilisers, running the giant machinery, and long-distance transport. Monocultures lead to malnutrition for the underfed and overfed alike. One billion people are without food because industrial monocultures robbed them of their livelihoods in agriculture and their food entitlements. Another 1.7 billion are suffering from obesity and food-related diseases.

CHINA: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

Since its accession to the WTO five years ago, China has been the fastest-growing trading nation in the world and now the third- largest trading economy, after the EU and US, writes Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the Word Trade Organization (WTO) In this article, Lamy writes that a successful Doha Round can provide China with a stable and predictable global trading environment and offer the prospects for another 10-15 years period of peaceful economic development. In the Doha Round, we are negotiating the trade regime which will apply to all its members for the next 10 years. A trading system based on strong multilateral rules is the least expensive insurance policy against the risks of protectionism available to China and to the world economy. There are some signals that trade protectionism whether in developed or in developing countries could be on the rise. Given China\'s insertion into the world economy, multilateral trade opening and strong multilateral discipline are the best means to safeguard China\'s trade interests whether home or abroad. Without the Doha Round and without a well-functioning WTO, China could well be one of the biggest victims.

INFALLIBILITY AND THE POPE

Pope Benedict XVI\'s unfortunate citation of the statement of a 14th Century Byzantine emperor is a cause of scandal and shame for Christians as well as Muslims, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer. In this article, Boff writes that the Pope knows that there is a confrontation underway between Muslims and the West, which has brought war to Afghanistan and Iraq and openly backs the Israeli cause against the Palestinians. Thus Benedict XVI\'s quotation has created an association between the papacy and the military strategies of the West. How could this not give rise to irritation? It must be pointed out that this is not an isolated incident for this Pope. As Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger opposed letting Turkey join the European Union because it is has a Muslim majority. Not long ago, he suppressed an initiative in the Vatican to promote dialogue between Christianity and Islam. For him dialogue with other religions makes no sense given that \'\'it is contrary to the Catholic faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation equal to others\'\'.

THE BEAST AND THE BEAUTY

The decision of the organisers of Madrid fashion week to bar \'\'excessively\'\' thin models from the city\'s runways immediately reminded me of a grim joke in very poor taste about Ethiopian children who, seeing the photo of a very, very skinny top model, decided to organise a collection of food to send the destitute woman, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, Cuban writer and novelist, winner of the Dashiell Hammett Prize for Best Literary Crime Novel. In this article, the author writes that the fashion world\'s habit of setting extreme thinness as the measure of female beauty (and personal success) appears to have reached worrying extremes: according to scientific authorities, the attainment of these emaciated physiques is related to psychic and eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, which are becoming more and more widespread. If we do not respect that which was granted us by the miracle of evolution, an inhabitable planet and a body with intelligence, the future of the species and its common home could be condemned to premature death generated and engineered precisely by that great human virtue: intelligence. Or by its major defect: foolishness.

CUBA: NOW WHAT?

The moment may have come for the moderate sectors of the Cuban exile community to convince the rest of them, and the US Congress, to suspend the trade embargo against Cuba and wisely bring about those conditions necessary for a transition, writes Joaquin Roy, the Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the Centre for the European Union at the University of Miami. In this article, Roy writes that it is not clear whether the Bush administration is capable of an intelligent response to the current situation or what movement the various exile groups might be able to generate. Washington might take advantage of an extension of Castro\'s absence beyond what is reasonable given the medical emergency to make Raul a spectacular offer: unconditionally lifting the embargo. Raul Castro would have to choose between two alternatives: reject all offers, or collaborate pragmatically. The advantage that Raul has at the moment is that he controls the armed forces and the state companies, which are managed by recycled military personnel. The question is whether this group actually has the energy and the means to fill the vacuum. At present, therefore, Washington\'s strategy is to place more trust in the \'\'known evil\'\' (the military) than in an as-yet unknown good, especially because it cannot be ruled out that Cuba will be swept by social upheaval and conflict as it begins to make the transition into a \'\'normal\'\' country.

THE LEAD LIFESAVER

Uruguay is becoming a world centre of cellulose production, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\'. In this article, Galeano writes that it is a case of export monoculture in the purest colonial tradition: immense artificial plantations that call themselves forests and generate cellulose in an industrial process that floods the rivers with poisons and makes the air unbreathable. As usual, the blessings of nature become the curses of history. Our eucalyptus grows ten times faster than that of Finland, which means that the industrial plantations will be ten times as devastating. At the rate things are going, a large part of the country\'s land will be squeezed until the last drop of water is extracted. It is a tragic paradox: this was the only country in the world that submitted the ownership of water to a plebiscite. An overwhelming majority of Uruguayans decided in 2004 that water was public property. Is there no way to avoid this hijacking of the popular will?

SUICIDE: THE NEW HARVEST OF GM COTTON

Evidence from the fields shows Monsanto\'s claims about its Bt cotton variety to be spurious, writes Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute (www.oaklandinstitute.org), a policy thinktank dedicated to creating a space for public participation and democratic debate on key social, economic, environmental and foreign policy issues. In this article, Mittal cites a new study by Cornell University researchers, the first to look at longer-term economic impact of Bt cotton. The study of 481 Chinese farmers in five major cotton-producing provinces found that after seven years of cultivation they had to spray up to 20 times in a growing season to deal with secondary insects, which resulted in a net average income of 8 percent less than conventional cotton farmers. Failure of Bt cotton crops in India resulted in the suicides of an estimated 700 farmers in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, between June 1, 2005 and August 9, 2006, to escape debt incurred by buying the expensive GM seed. As Bt cotton continues to jostle for public acceptance, Bt crops have been attacked by \'\'Lalya\'\' or \'\'reddening\'\' as well, a disease unseen before which affected Bt more than the non-Bt cotton crop, resulting in 60 percent of farmers in Maharashtra failing to recover costs from their first GM harvest. Genetic engineering and Bt cotton will neither revolutionise the countryside in the developing countries nor improve food security, but a new farm economy based on the principle of food sovereignty and farmers\' rights as the centrepiece of the country\'s economic development model will.

MIDDLE EAST: SELF-DEFENSE OR WAR?

Bombs are falling again on innocent civilians in Lebanon, Gaza, and northern Israel. Why? It is necessary to go back in history to understand what is happening today, write Johan Galtung, a Professor of Peace Studies and Founder and Co-Director of TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network (www.transcend.org), and Dietrich Fischer, Director of the European University Centre for Peace Studies (www.epu.ac.at) and Co-Director of TRANSCEND. The problem is the vicious cycle of repeated mutual retaliation characteristic of wars, and underlying it the unresolved conflict between Jews and Arabs. This problem cannot be solved by de-escalation in the choice of targets and level of destruction. A ceasefire is urgent to end the immediate suffering, but it will remain only temporary as long as the underlying conflict is not solved. Israel should consider how to make peace rather than war. One way out might be a Middle East Community modeled after the European Community of 1958, with Palestine fully recognised. It would be in Israel\'s and its Arab neighbor\'s interest to learn from that success story. People of good will should come together in the midst of the present crisis to elaborate what a peaceful Middle East could look like.

HOW MUCH LONGER?

One country bombed two countries. Such impunity might astound were it not business as usual. In the few timid protests made, it was stated that mistakes were made. How much longer will horrors be called mistakes?, asks Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of The Open Veins of Latin America and Memories of Fire. In this article, Galeano writes that this slaughter of civilians began with the kidnapping of a soldier. How much longer will the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier be allowed to justify the kidnapping of Palestinian sovereignty? How much longer will the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers be allowed to justify the kidnapping of the entire nation of Lebanon? For centuries the slaughter of Jews was the favourite sport of Europeans. Auschwitz was the natural culmination of an ancient river of terror which had flowed across all of Europe. How much longer will Palestinians and other Arabs be made to pay for crimes they didn`t commit? Those who dare denounce this murder are called anti-semites. How much longer will the critics of state terrorism be considered anti-semites? How much longer will we accept this grotesque form of extortion? Are the Jews who are horrified by what is being done in their name anti-semites? Are Arabs, as Semitic as the Jews, anti-semites? Are there not Arab voices that defend a Palestinian homeland but condemn fundamentalist insanity? Isn`t it clear that in the war between Israel and Hezbolla it is the civilians, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Israeli, that are dying? And isn´t it clear that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the invasion of Gaza and Lebanon are the incubators of hatred, producing fanatic after fanatic after fanatic? We are the only species of animal that specialises in mutual extermination. We devote 2.5 billion dollars per day to military spending. Misery and war are children of the same father. How much longer will we accept that this world so in love with death is the only world possible?

THE WORLD CUP OF ZIDANE

Someone, I don\'t know who, summed up the 2006 World Cup as follows: -The players behaved in an exemplary fashion. They didn\'t drink, they didn\'t smoke, they didn\'t play, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of The Open Veins of Latin America and Memories of Fire. Those who from time to time made a goal did not play beautiful football, and those who did, didn\'t score. Africa was edged out early on, and before long Latin America was exiled as well. The World Cup became a Eurocup. The results rewarded what is now called practical sense: high defensive walls and way up front a lone scorer, imploring God for a favour. As is usually the case in football and life, he who plays best loses while he who plays not to lose wins. The finale of penalty shots only added to the injustice. Until 1968, difficult games were decided with the flip of a coin. In a way, this is still true. The penalty shots seemed too much a matter of sheer chance. Argentina was better than Germany, and France was better than Italy, but a few seconds mattered more than two hours of play, and Argentina had to go home and France lost the Cup. ..... There was little imagination on display. The artists left the playing to weight lifters and Olympic runners, who in passing would kick a ball or a rival.

NAFTA: A CONTINENTAL TRAGEDY

On June 6, 2006, the Canadian members of parliament from the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois met with their American and Mexican counterparts to declare that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a \'\'continental tragedy\'\', writes Anuradha Mittal, the founder and director of the Oakland Institute. In this article, Mittal writes that the ongoing debate on the fate of some 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US continues to ignore the structural issues that have forced millions to leave their homes. Free-trade agreements like NAFTA promised to bring more jobs, trade surpluses, and an increased standard of living to member countries, but the reality is altogether different. Far from providing a \'\'level playing field\'\', NAFTA has been a death warrant for small farmers, placing small Mexican farmers at a sharp disadvantage with respect to the US. No fence will be able to take the pressure off of the US border. The country must therefore address a number of simple questions: should the undocumented immigrants be criminalised and our borders walled off, or should we get rid of or renegotiate free-trade agreements? Should we blame the victims of free trade-agreements, or should we ensure that as long as capital and goods can move freely across borders, so can the hungry, the destitute, and the dispossessed?

MIDDLE EAST: SELF-DEFENSE OR WAR?

Bombs are falling again on innocent civilians in Lebanon, Gaza, and northern Israel. Why? It is necessary to go back in history to understand what is happening today, write Johan Galtung, a Professor of Peace Studies and Founder and Co-Director of TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network (www.transcend.org), and Dietrich Fischer, Director of the European University Centre for Peace Studies (www.epu.ac.at) and Co-Director of TRANSCEND. The problem is the vicious cycle of repeated mutual retaliation characteristic of wars, and underlying it the unresolved conflict between Jews and Arabs. This problem cannot be solved by de-escalation in the choice of targets and level of destruction. A ceasefire is urgent to end the immediate suffering, but it will remain only temporary as long as the underlying conflict is not solved. Israel should consider how to make peace rather than war. One way out might be a Middle East Community modeled after the European Community of 1958, with Palestine fully recognised. It would be in Israel\'s and its Arab neighbor\'s interest to learn from that success story. People of good will should come together in the midst of the present crisis to elaborate what a peaceful Middle East could look like.

THE THREAT FROM GLOBAL TRADE IMBALANCES

Despite the relatively favourable evolution of the terms of trade of many developing countries, complacency must be avoided, writes Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In this article, the author argues that one of the most important challenges for national policy makers and for the international community is to ensure a fair distribution of the revenue arising from primary production and its proper use in financing development. Strengthened macroeconomic policy coordination is also necessary to improve the coherence between the international trading and financial systems. There is a striking asymmetry in existing multilateral arrangements between trade on the one hand, and monetary and financial relations on the other. A global monetary authority like the IMF could play an important role in strengthening the international institutional framework in the monetary and financial area. It would have to focus on international monetary and financial stability. In principle, surveillance could play a significant part in promoting a more stable and reliable system of exchange rates to ensure a predictable trading environment. But in order to fulfil that role, surveillance would need to become more effective and also symmetrical across all countries

WASHINGTON NEO CONS PUSH WORLD WAR III AS ELECTION STRATEGY

In the current US political climate with majorities in both Houses of Congress passing resolutions of support for Israel in its new war on Hezbollah, dissenting voices are heard mainly on alternative independent media and the blogosphere, writes Hazel Henderson, author of the forthcoming Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy and other books. In this article, Henderson writes of independent journalist Bill Berkowitz\'s timely alert in Other News, July 20, 2006 about the Republican strategy to market more fear by escalating their war-on-terror rhetoric to panic about the advent of World War III, setting up Syria and Iran as the next US targets. As the coming mid-term elections in November look likely to unseat Republican majorities in Congress, such useful domestic reforms as alternative energy or Newt Gingrich`s ideas on health care are proving too tame to fire up the Republican base. Thus, the switch to escalating the \"war on terror\" on \"axis of evil\" countries and \"Islamic extremists\" and the new media-friendly, propaganda-perfect soundbite \"World War III\". No doubt already tested in focus groups, this new slogan is perfect for bumper stickers, campaign buttons, tee shirts, stickers, 15-second TV and radio spots as well as talk show soundbites. Let`s remember President Dwight Eisenhower`s cautions about the US military-industrial complex and President Franklin D. Roosevelt who reminded us that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

TREND TO ABOLISH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT CONTINUES

The annual report on capital punishment issued on July 21 by the abolitionist organisation Hands Off Cain shows that the movement towards the abolition of the death penalty, underway for at least ten years, is continuing, writes Elisabetta Zamparutti, a lawyer and the coordinator of the annual report on the death penalty worldwide by Hands Off Cain. It is essential that we act immediately to make sure that a moratorium on the death penalty is presented and approved by the UN General Assembly in September. In this way we can fulfil the initiative begun 13 years ago by Hands Off Cain and by the Transnational Radical Party, which enjoys the support of an extraordinary convergence of the majority and the opposition in the Italian Parliament. With the help of the UN moratorium --and in anticipation of a complete worldwide abolition -- the thousands of those condemned to death could be saved: not only those already known to all, in American prisons, but also the unnamed and the forgotten who await their sentences in the prisons of China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Cuba, and all other authoritarian regimes who go to their deaths in silence with total indifference on the part of the world.

RESOURCE WARS: THE HEAVY ECOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL FOOTPRINT OF ECONOMIC GLOBALISATION

Oil wars, water wars, land wars, atmospheric wars : this is the real face of economic globalisation, whose appetite for resources is exceeding the limits of sustainability and justice, writes Vandana Shiva, an author and international campaigner for women and the environment. Like oil, water is becoming a source of wars as it is commodified and privatised, dammed and transferred long distances. Every river in India has become a site of major, irresolvable conflicts over water ownership and distribution. The waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, which have sustained agriculture for thousands of years in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, have been the cause of several major clashes among the three countries. Trade liberalisation is allowing corporations to encroach on the ecological space of local communities, thus unleashing conflicts. The problem is not a shortage of natural resources but free trade and globalisation, corporate greed and partnerships between corporations and states to usurp people\'s resources and violate their fundamental rights. If globalisation is pushed relentlessly, these resource wars will grow and globalisation will be slowed to a halt by ecological catastrophes and conflicts over resources -- or, the movements for ecological sustainability and social justice will succeed in resisting globalisation\'s ecological overreaching by laying the foundations for an Earth Democracy in which we live lightly on the earth, and share her vital resources equitably.

NO NEW IDEAS FROM DAVOS, NO ACTION FROM PORTO ALEGRE

Despite its current openness to new issues, no one today expects ideas and proposals from the World Economic Forum or anything more than the great opportunity for socialising it offers its participants, writes Roberto Savio, president emeritus of IPS news agency and a member of the International Council of the World Social Forum. In this article, the author writes that only corporations with income of over one billion dollars are invited to the WEF, which means that businesses from the developing world are sharply under-represented. And despite its name, the WEF is dominated by Europeans, Americans, and Japanese: in 2002, 75 percent of attendees were from Europe and the US. Just 7.7 percent of the forum were from Asia, home to 60 percent of the global population. While participation in the World Social Forum has reached unprecedented levels, topping 100,000 participants, it has entered a crisis of growth and identity and perhaps a transition to new forms. Davos and Porto Alegre are both separate actors and at the same time symptoms of their respective worlds. The WEF has the power but faces a crisis of legitimacy. The WSF represents the eruption of a new phase of idealism and commitment in the world.

HELSINKI PROCESS TARGETS CORRUPTION

At the Helsinki Conference last September, the need to promote global cooperation in the fight against corruption emerged as a central issue, write Leena Luhtanen, Finland\'s Minister of Justice, and Erkki Tuomioja, Minister for Foreign Affairs. In this article the authors write that in recent years, the globalisation of corruption has spurred the international community to acknowledge the problem and demand action that is not restricted to mere recommendations but aims at creating binding international legislation. Perhaps the best example of this is the UN Convention against Corruption, which has been signed by 140 states and ratified by 52, and which went into force in December 2005. Indeed, implementation and effective oversight are the Achilles\' heel of the UN Convention against Corruption as well. Recognising that corruption must be met with cross-border cooperation, Finland has developed a Road Map for action which is being realised together with Friends of the Helsinki Process governments -- Algeria, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Hungary, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, and the United Kingdom -- and in cooperation with other active governments as well as representatives of the private sector and civil society.

THE WORLD NEEDS A MORE DEMOCRATIC UNITED NATIONS

In its present form the United Nations is ill-equipped to advance humanity\'s best interests, writes Kumi Naidoo, Secretary-General of Civicus: World Alliance For Citizen Participation. In this article the author writes that the democratisation of the UN cannot be limited to the current efforts at reform. Calls by the Secretary General for full, systemic, and meaningful civil society participation must be urgently implemented in order to make the UN system more transparent, accountable, and democratic. What is most urgently needed is a changed consciousness at the international level. This is an essential prerequisite for the UN to achieve a profound democratic transformation that will allow humanity to deal effectively with the new challenges of the 21st century. Civil society traditionally has helped bring about great societal changes. It shall continue to do so in the years ahead.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: THE CRADLE OF GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY

What can we expect from the future of the World Social Forum? asks Roberto Savio, president emeritus of IPS and member of the International Council of the World Social Forum. In this analysis, Savio writes that the refusal of the participants to allow themselves to be absorbed by political parties and to establish relations with political institutions has reduced the WSF to a circuit of self-referentiality. Is it possible to increase the WSF\'s capacity for action? Savio thinks not: it has not been possible to move past the idea of an \'\'open space\'\', which allows for the exchange of ideas and the creation of alliances but prevents the formulation of proposals for concrete action by the forum. It is thought that such options should be carried out by the organisations participating in the WSF during their normal operations. There is a minority that holds that the WSF should not limit itself to being a kind of spiritual exercise from which participants emerge stronger and better. They believe that the forum should decide on a series of actions that provide an alternative to neoliberal globalisation and should pressure institutions to adopt them. But for now this debate is going nowhere. In all likelihood the WSF will not make significant progress into the political realm and will remain a major exceptional occasion for civil society to meet.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: THE CRADLE OF GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY

What can we expect from the future of the World Social Forum? asks Roberto Savio, president emeritus of IPS and member of the International Council of the World Social Forum. In this analysis, Savio writes that the refusal of the participants to allow themselves to be absorbed by political parties and to establish relations with political institutions has reduced the WSF to a circuit of self-referentiality. Is it possible to increase the WSF\'s capacity for action? Savio thinks not: it has not been possible to move past the idea of an \'\'open space\'\', which allows for the exchange of ideas and the creation of alliances but prevents the formulation of proposals for concrete action by the forum. It is thought that such options should be carried out by the organisations participating in the WSF during their normal operations. There is a minority that holds that the WSF should not limit itself to being a kind of spiritual exercise from which participants emerge stronger and better. They believe that the forum should decide on a series of actions that provide an alternative to neoliberal globalisation and should pressure institutions to adopt them. But for now this debate is going nowhere. In all likelihood the WSF will not make significant progress into the political realm and will remain a major exceptional occasion for civil society to meet.