IRAQ: METHOD IN THE MADNESS

The synchronised attacks in Iraq on Christian churches of various denominations was not a chance event but the fruit of a carefully orchestrated plan, writes Jorge Dezcallar, Spanish ambassador to the Holy See and ex-director of the National Centre of Intelligence (CNI). For the Iraqi resistance groups and the constellation of Islamic radicals that back them, the objective of jihad (holy war) is crystal clear: to force the Americans and their allies out of Iraq, in a humiliating withdrawal if possible. It is an attempt to turn Iraq into Washington\'s new Vietnam, whatever it takes. The Iraqi resistance knows that it cannot directly combat the Americans, who, it also knows, are not going to withdraw of their own will in the short term. Therefore the Iraqis are obliged to use indirect forms of confrontation. The most obvious way of making life difficult for the US is attacking oil installations in Iraq. Another approach is to drive out of Iraq everything that seems multilateral, especially the UN, for the simple reason that their mere presence gives some legitimacy to the occupation. Thus the bombings of UN targets and threats against its member countries.

NEPAL: ON THE BRINK OF DISASTER

Nepal\'s first explosion of religious violence last week has shocked the country, and prompted calls for reviving the kingdom\'s traditional values of tolerance and compassion, writes Kunda Dixit, editor of the weekly newspaper Nepali Times in Kathmandu. As Kathmandu returns to normal this week after the riots, the government will have to tackle the longer term problem of restoring peace. Everyone in Nepal agrees there is no military victory in this conflict. A negotiated solution needs to be found to address the main political demand of the Maoists: set up a constituent assembly to get rid of the monarchy. The Maoists have hinted in the past that they may be willing to live with a constitutional monarchy and their demand for republic is to leave some flexibility in negotiation. What complicates the government\'s dealings with the Maoists is that the parliamentary parties are at loggerheads with the king. The three-month old government of prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of a centre-right faction of the Nepali Congress has cobbled together a shaky coalition made up of the moderate left United Marxist-Leninist. But four other parties have refused to join, saying King Gyanendra wants to take the country back to the days of absolute monarchy. The king has repeatedly denied this, but says the parties need to mend their behaviour and be more accountable.

THE TIME OF THE ANTI-CHRIST

The atrocious massacres of innocent people in Iraq, Palestine, and Rusia bring to mind two Biblical expressions that Christians use when confronted by staggering injustice or a degree of perversity that stuns reason and obliterates human sensibility: \'\'the abomination of desolation\'\' and the \'\'second coming of the Anti-Christ\'\', writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer. There are times, like the present, in which the Anti-Christ seems to prevail. It erupts so fearfully that it paralyses us and almost strips the just of any hope. The category of Anti-Christ has been wielded throughout history by those who would demonise their adversaries. For this reason we must be cautious in using it and avoid facile labelling. But today, when the perversity at work in the world is so great, we must use it both to denounce and to give warning. The Anti-Christ is among us and is active on both fronts, politics and religion. Both have in common a disregard for human life and a lack of pity for the innocent. And both are cold-blooded killers.

DARFUR TESTS NEW EU FOREIGN AID APPROACH

The European Commission has radically overhauled the way it works: aid has been designed to promote local ownership as the best guarantee for its sustainability, writes Poul Nielsen, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. The EU-backed African Peace Facility is a case in point, the author writes in this analysis. The African Union is currently facing its sternest test in Darfur. The EU has mobilised 12 million euros from the Peace Facility to support the AU\'s current efforts. But as the situation in Darfur worsens pressure is mounting on the international community to intervene directly in the conflict. Certainly, the international community has an important role to play, and with continued pressure on the conflicting parties and 285 million euros in direct humanitarian aid, the EU has not turned a blind eye. However, now is not the time to undermine the ownership and initiative taken by the AU, which has been proactively seeking a solution to the crisis. Also, in a difficult situation like the Darfur crisis we must have the courage to choose the option that offers us long-term prospects of a solution. A lot is at stake, not only for the population of Darfur but for the continent as a whole.

BRAZIL: LULA STUCK IN NEOLIBERAL TRAP

The government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been in power almost two years old now, and yet, intimidated by threats of speculation and every sort of blackmail, it has lamentably maintained an economic policy based on the same neoliberal precepts subscribed to by the previous government, writes Joao Pedro Stedile, national co-ordinator of the Movement of the Landless (MST) and a leader of Via Campesina. In this analysis, Stedile writes that the government\'s priority is the performance of financial capital, to which it transfers the nation\'s savings by running the budget surpluses advised by the International Monetary Fund in order to make payments on its debt. The results are predictable. The economy grew but there was no improvement in employment and education or in land and income distribution. The problem is that Brazil desperately needs to hold a debate on the creation of a new development plan. As long as there is no such plan for national development, the Lula administration will shuttle between growth and crisis, formulating short-term measures that time will quickly sweep away.

WTO AND AGRICULTURE: A DARK DECADE AHEAD

A year after the UNDP\'s 2003 Human Development Report showed that poverty in 54 countries was considerably worse than in the previous decade, the WTO has reached a \'historic\' framework agreement that will further marginalise the developing economies, writes Devinder Sharma, internationally-recognised commentator on trade, sustainable agriculture, and biodiversity, and author of \'\'Seeds of Despair\'\'and \'\'The Famine Trap\'\'. In this article, Sharma writes that during the intense WTO negotiations in Geneva in late July the developed countries finally succeeded in piercing what remained of developing country agriculture while raising even further their own already high level of agricultural subsidies. The reductions in trade-distorting subsidies set out in the new WTO agreement --20 percent in the first year of implementation-- are calculated according to a revised formula that, by increasing certain permitted types of support, actually allows the US and EU to increase agricultural subsidies. Importing food is like importing unemployment, yet the WTO has refused to draw a balance sheet showing the human and environmental cost of its trade paradigm. By further opening their borders to trade, developing countries ruined their agricultural sectors.

WHY VENEZUELANS WILL VOTE TO KEEP CHAVEZ

The division of power that followed the coronation of Pedro Carmona as president after the April 11 coup against the democratically-elected Hugo Chavez left no doubt that the policy of social inclusion of the Chavez government would be ended, writes Samuel Moncada, an historian and member of the 12-person team headed by President Chavez to conduct the ruling party campaign for the August 15 referendum. The Bolivarian Constitution that the people approved by referendum in 1999 along with the laws on land, fishing, and hydrocarbon policy, among others, were rescinded, making it clear that the dictatorship installed by the opposition would be unyielding with the poor. All rights and social programmes implemented by Chavez were cancelled. Everything that favoured the poor or recognised them as participants in Venezuelan society was attacked without reflection. The accusations levelled against the National Electoral Council by the spokesmen of the opposition are part of a preexisting script which requires them to echo the continuous threats issued by Bush administration spokesmen, with the object of discrediting and rejecting the results of the referendum once it becomes evident that, yet again, the majority of Venezuelans back the process of change begun in 1999. Since more has been achieved in these last five years than in the preceding four decades, we say: no to the privatisation of oil, social exclusion, and the usury of the banking industry, no to the elimination of literacy programmes and medical assistance, no to involvement in the Columbian conflict, and no to the FTAA.

DEBT, DEVELOPMENT, AND SECURITY

If current trends persist, extreme poverty in the world\'s least developed countries, far from being eradicated, will expand from 334 million people in 2000 to 471 million in 2015, writes Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In this article, Ricupero writes that nonetheless there is no justification for development pessimism regarding LDCs. Between 2000-2002 the poorest of the poor countries enjoyed a real average annual GDP growth rate of almost 5 percent, almost 1 percent more than the rest of the developing economies, which shows that development for the LDCs can be achieved and accelerated through the right strategies and a friendly environment. He calls for a new international covenant in which solidarity is granted the same stature in our aspirations as peace. Ricupero notes that the new kinds of threats to peace and security are often found in conjunction with a failed State with an economy in regression. It would be futile to fight these phenomena without addressing the sources of grievances that they exploit. This is a particularly clear example of the lack of coherence in the global system. It is indispensable to widen the door that leads to development and to remove the biases, imbalances, and distortions which make the path to development too steep for the weak to climb.

WHAT DOES THE UNITED NATIONS WANT WITH THE INTERNET ?

According to some less well-informed commentators, at the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis in November 2005, the UN plans to \'\'take over the Internet\'\', writes Shashi Tharoor, UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. These critics suggest that developing countries without a tradition of tolerating free expression will be given a greater role in running the Internet, which will inevitably lead to censorship. Tharoor writes in this column that the UN is not interested in taking over Internet governance. Rather, the UN is providing a platform where all parties can meet to discuss how the Internet should operate. And those speaking will not be only governments but also businesses, non-governmental organisations, research institutions, and other members of the Internet community. What the United Nations wants from the Internet is that it fulfil its promise by delivering opportunities to all people, especially those most in need, to improve their lives.

PLANNED US LAW ON NORTH KOREA WOULD ONLY MAKE THINGS WORSE

On July 22, 2004, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed the North Korea Human Rights Act (NKHRA), writes Christine Ahn, who coordinates the Economic and Social Human Rights Programme at the Institute for Food and Development Policy and is a member of the Korea Solidarity Committee of the San Francisco Bay Area. In this article, the author writes that the bill was backed by a coalition of right-wing evangelical Christian groups and pro-war thinktanks that believe the collapse of the regime will usher in freedom for North Koreans. It demonstrates US policymakers\' complete ignorance of North Korea, the conditions that have caused famine there, and the ensuing human rights crisis. The NKHRA is based on the assumption that the famine in North Korea was a result of Kim Jong Il\'s mismanagement of the country. Most experts, on the other hand, agree that the main causes of famine were a series of catastrophic events beyond North Korea\'s control: the collapse of the Soviet Union, which brought an end the shipments of oil needed to run tractors and other agricultural machinery, and a series of the historic droughts and floods. A letter signed by over 100 NGOs states that the bill would not improve human rights but would further hinder international humanitarian aid and negotiations for peace on the Korean peninsula.

WIND POWER: CLEANER, UNLIMITED, AND CHEAPER THAN OIL

Renewable energy advocates say that wind offers the best near-term option to reduce the demand for oil, coal and natural gas, writes Mark Sommer, host of award-winning syndicated radio programme, A World of Possibilities. In this analysis for IPS, the author writes that recent technological breakthroughs have greatly increased the efficiency of wind turbines, driving the price per kilowatt/hour down to levels competitive with oil. And if the hidden costs and subsidies incurred by oil and coal were factored into the comparison, the true cost of wind energy would be far lower. The foreign wars waged, the occupations and military bases built to protect supply lines, the degradation of air, water, and human health make the true cost of a barrel of crude not 40 but 200 dollars, or more. Yet for all the promise of wind power, its rapid development is still thwarted by numerous obstacles, which are less technological than political. The multinational companies that dominate the energy industry and national energy policies today are well aware that oil, coal, and natural gas are finite resources but are determined to squeeze the largest profits they can before switching to other sources. Their favoured alternative is not wind power but nuclear power.

BETWEEN VENEZUELA AND NOWHERELAND

A strange dictator this Hugo Chavez -- both suicidal and masochistic. He created a constitution that allows the people to throw him out and then risked this very outcome in the first recall referendum in the history of Venezuela, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and novelist and author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\' He was not punished, Galeano writes in this article. Indeed, it was the eighth election Chavez had won in five years. Obedient to his own constitution, Chavez accepted the referendum, which was called for by the opposition, and placed his fate in the hands of the people: \'\'You decide.\'\' Until now, presidents interrupted their terms of office only in the event of death, a putsch, an uprising, or a parliamentary decision. The referendum introduced a novel form of direct democracy. It was an extraordinary event: How many presidents, anywhere in the world, would dream of doing what Chavez did? And how many would continue to be president after doing so?

BYE BYE CHAVEZ

On August 15 Venezuelans will vote in a referendum on whether or not to revoke the presidential mandate of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez, writes Humberto Calderon Berti, ex-foreign minister of Venezuela, ex-president of OPEC, and a leader of the opposition umbrella group Coordinadora Democratica. In this article, the author writes that the Venezuelan people have struggled for years against the current regime, which has attempted to establish a totalitarian-style government. The referendum is the culmination of a long chain of events in which the electoral authorities, rather than facilitating the process they are charged with managing, did nothing but obstruct it. After the convocation of the referendum, the government began a campaign of intimidation and blackmail against those who had signed, resorting to the usual mechanisms preferred by totalitarian systems. In recent days there have been accusations that the opposition is preparing violent acts. If violence does occur, the regime will be responsible.

“IT IS AN ERROR TO BELIEVE THAT CHANGING THE US PRESIDENT AUTOMATICALLY MEANS A CHANGE IN THE US STAND ON THE MIDDLE EAST”: INTERVIEW WITH YASSER ABED RABBO

He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and co-author of the Geneva Accord, a negotiated but unofficial plan for a permanent peace between Israelis and Palestinians. According to the plan, in exchange for peace with Israel, the Palestinians would gain a non-militarised state and sovereignty over the Temple Mount (with Jewish access to the holy spot), while Israel would keep certain West Bank settlements, including many of the new Jewish communities erected on the Arab side of Jerusalem. Yasser Abed Rabbo talks with IPS about Gaza, the crisis in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and terrorism.

INTERVIEW WITH MORDECHAI VANUNU: ‘A STRANGE CONCEPT OF JUSTICE’

Three months after his release after 18 years in prison in Israel, Mordechai Vanunu, Israel\'s nuclear whistleblower, was back in his country\'s judicial system, this time to demand his full freedom: the lifting of restrictions imposed on him by Israeli authorities barring him from talking to foreigners, particularly journalists, and from leaving the country. Under international law Israel is obliged to restore to Vanunu his full rights as a normal citizen after completion of his sentence. The only exception to this rule is for reasons of \'\'national security\'\'. The judges in the first short session before the Court rightly pointed out that the question of secrets was a key factor in the case. And indeed the nuclear debate has been picking up in Israel in the months around Vanunu\'s release. This whistleblower thinks it is high time that the State thank him instead of trying to punish him forever.

THE NEXT STEP TOWARDS A NUCLEAR FREE WORLD

Since the discovery of Iraq\'s clandestine nuclear weapons programme in the early 1990s, the IAEA has sought creative methods to strengthen the nuclear safeguards regime; these methods have in many ways proved successful, writes Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In this analysis, the author writes that \"our recent experiences in Iraq, Iran, and Libya have confirmed how effective IAEA verification can be, even under difficult conditions, provided that we are given adequate authority, aided by all available information, backed by a credible compliance mechanism, and supported by international consensus\". A key aspect of IAEA authority is the so-called \'\'additional protocol\'\', the supplement to a safeguards agreement with the IAEA that gives it broader rights of access to information and inspection sites. For the regime to be credible, the additional protocol should be accepted as the verification standard, but only 56 of the 184 non-nuclear-weapon states party to the NPT have ratified the protocol. Developing countries can play their part to enhance the credibility of the NPT regime and solidify their position on the \'\'moral high ground\'\' by bringing this additional protocol into force.

GLOBAL COMPACT SHOULD SPIN OFF FROM UN

The UN Global Compact brought together over 400 leaders of corporations, labour unions, and civil society at its June 24th Summit, writes Hazel Henderson, author of numerous books on global sustainability and financial reform and is founder and president of Ethical Marketplace, a global media company. In this article, Henderson writes that what is now a global network of 1,500 signatory companies began in 2000 as a challenge in a speech by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to corporate leaders to adopt nine principles of good corporate citizenship -- regarding human rights, labour standards, and the environment. The Compact, initially a system of voluntary \'\'engagement\'\' with little monitoring or accountability, became a mutual peer-pressure association at the Summit. However, civil society organisations led by the Earth Rights Foundation asserted that the Global Compact is a distraction from the real task of the UN and governments, which is to establish effective inter-governmental frameworks for corporate accountability. They urge that the Compact be disbanded. The wisest course would be to spin off the Compact as an independent organisation, Henderson concludes.

CONFESSIONS OF THE TORTURER

The information obtained through torture is not credible, or barely so, for the simple reason that pain transforms anyone into an author of fiction; the powers that use torture, on the other hand, reveal their true identity through this grim practice: in the chambers of torment, the commanders take off their masks, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\'. In this analysis, Galeano writes that the occupying forces preach democracy and freedom but practice crime and torture. The rest is pure theatre: the ceremonies, proclamations, speeches, promises, the transfer of sovereignty. Torture generates information that is of minimal usefulness and questionable veracity. Yet it has been and continues to be used because it is efficient in punishing heresy, causing humiliation, and sowing fear. The monks of the Inquisition knew this very well, and so does the top military brass of today\'s imperial adventures. Power does not use torture to protect the population but to terrorize it. Will it be as efficient as power thinks it is? Galeano asks.

WTO: DEVELOPMENT AT STAKE

The WTO talks underway in Geneva, aimed at reviving negotiations on lowering global trade barriers, are yet another demonstration of the crisis of inequity and hypocrisy that has afflicted the organisation from the very beginning, writes Anuradha Mittal, founder and director of the Oakland Institute, a non-partisan research, analysis, and advocacy group. In this article, the author writes that the draft agreement set before the 147 members on July 16 openly discriminates against developing nations by adopting a non-committal approach to the Special and Differential treatment needs, sensitive products, and special safe guard mechanisms, all of which it leaves to a \'\'post- framework stage\'\'. At the same time, the draft overlooks African countries\' demands that the Cotton Initiative be treated on a stand-alone, fast-track basis, instead adopting the US demand to consider this issue under the broader agriculture negotiations. The truth is that in the draft July package, the organisation is acting like a Robin Hood in reverse: trying to rob the world\'s poor to enrich American and European corporations. The WTO will remain deadlocked as long as it continues to fail the development needs of the poor.

WTO DOHA ROUND AT CRUCIAL JUNCTURE

The Doha Development Agenda of the WTO is at a crucial juncture: by the end of July we need to secure a framework package for agriculture and industrial products and an accord which better defines how we address cotton subsidies and the so-called Singapore Issues (investment, competition, transparency in government procurement, and trade facilitation), writes Supachai Panitchpakdi, Director-general of the World Trade Organisation. In this article, the author writes that if governments and their constituents lose faith in the ability of the Doha Development Agenda to deliver results we will see a growing imbalance between multilateral and bilateral deal-making. This could shake the foundations of non-discrimination and transparency upon which the multilateral trading system is built. Common ground must be found, and quickly. International business and the global trade machine will certainly not wait for us to move. Discriminatory market access arrangements will become commonplace and the law of the jungle will prevail. The losers every time will be the poorer, developing countries.

A WORRYING SITUATION FOR THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF SOUTH EAST ASIA.

In mid-July the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will vote on whether to suspend for three years the Transnational Radical Party\'s (TRP) consultative status within the Council in response to a request by the Vietnamese Delegation to the UN, writes Emma Bonino deputy in the European Parliament and a leader of the Transnational Radical Party. In this article, Bonino writes that suspension would send a very unfortunate message regarding human rights in the area, particularly for the indigenous people of South East Asia. Vietnam believes that the TRP has abused its relationship with the UN by accrediting Kok Ksor, whom they allege to be a terrorist with a separatist agenda. Kok Ksor is a member of the Montagnards, the ethnic minority asylum seekers from Vietnam\'s Central Highlands, and is the President of the Montagnard Foundation Inc. (MFI), a non-profit organization registered in the US and dedicated to the preservation of Montagnard life and culture. MFI is not on any national or international list of terrorist organizations recognized by the EU, the US or the UN. Suspension the consultative status of the TRP will not only ban it from the UN system, but will also silence dozens of voices that, over the last several years, have been allowed to present their concerns before many UN bodies, starting with the Commission on Human Rights.