CAUCASUS: THE POWDER KEG

The Caucasus is today a major theatre of the Cold War II, which involves the long-term encirclement of Russia-India-China in order to control Eurasia through the eastward expansion of NATO and the westward expansion of AMPO, the US-Japan security system, writes Johan Galtung, a Professor of Peace Studies and founder of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network, and author of \"50 Years: 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,\" TRANSCEND University Press, 2008. In this article, Galtung writes that the US is pressing for Georgian membership in NATO, thereby coming even closer to the Russian heartland. This idea was rejected at the latest NATO meeting this spring, but not in principle. The Red Army functioned as the lid on the cauldron of the Soviet Union, and when it was removed, it boiled over. Georgia is the same. With the lid gone, Abkhasia and South Ossetia (and the Muslim Ajar) seceded. The most viable option may be a Caucasian Community, comprised of the four entities. Peace in the Caucasus implies disinviting the big powers and engaging in integrative Caucasian policies. The present policies lead away from peace. A Georgian government trying to gain popular support by reclaiming \"lost\" territories, hoping for some kind of US support, has already aggravated the situation - possibly leading to a major confrontation. Some statesmanship, please.

INDIA: AS THE ECONOMY GROWS, SO DOES HUNGER

Blaming high food prices on rising demand in fast-developing countries like China and India deflects scrutiny from structural causes - like the liberalisation of agricultural markets - and suggests incorrectly that market-friendly reforms have uplifted the poor and underprivileged, writes Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank working to increase public participation and to promote fair debate on critical social, economic, and environmental issues. In this analysis, the author writes that a closer examination of India disproves the latter assertion. In India the total number of the poor and vulnerable increased from 732 million to 836 million between 1993/1994 and 2004/2005. In an effort to move towards market-driven production of agricultural goods, India is shifting from coarse grains to high-value commodities for export and systematically pulling away from the long-respected post-Independence statute requiring self-reliance in agriculture. Consequently, there has been a considerable decline in the rate of growth of production, productivity, and the quantity of land planted and irrigated for the major crops. India\'s hunger and poverty amidst plenty is emblematic of hunger worldwide, which is the result of decades of neglect of agriculture in poor countries and ill-advised policies from the international financial institutions. Promoting agricultural development in poor nations would bolster their food self-sufficiency and help alleviate poverty.

HOUSING, FOOD, OIL – WHAT NEXT?

At the bottom of the world economy people die from hunger and preventable curable diseases while at the top, where enormous quantities of wealth are transported upwards, particularly into US hands, speculation is the twin of starvation, both offspring of the same morbid, and probably moribund, system, writes Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. In this article, Galtung writes that in the history of speculation, Black Tulip fever in Amsterdam four centuries ago and gold-gold-gold topped the chart. But these were innocent compared to the speculation found now in housing, food, and oil, which are for buying-selling only, not for end consumption. Moreover, and much worse, housing, food, and oil are basic needs. Basic needs are ideal for speculation because demand to a large extent is inelastic, independent of price. Unbelievably brutal, capitalism not only exploits workers but also kills the consumers, in the name of the market. Next in line as speculation targets are health and medical services, and not only the pharmaceuticals. Watch out, the logic is clear. What is the solution? Remove basic needs from the commodity market, and criminalise speculation in them.

WTO TALKS COLLAPSE AND THE BIRTH OF A NEW WORLD ORDER

There is a clear lesson to be drawn from the unsuccessful WTO negotiations held in Geneva July 21-29: the world is witnessing a shift of power in the arena of the world economy and world trade as new states with growing economies and political ambitions are asserting themselves, writes Jonas Gahr Store, Foreign Minister of Norway. In this analysis, Gahr Store writes that we could have paved the way for the next major round of negotiations, on climate change in Copenhagen next year. Perhaps I was present at the collapse of a world order, the author writes, but at the same time, I witnessed the birth of a new world order where all countries are present and demand their rights, and that requires an almost unlimited willingness to negotiate, make compromises, and find sustainable solutions. We must use our failure in Geneva as a spur for the development of a world order that involves more states, a shift in the power balance, and essential new tasks relating to climate change, the environment, labour rights, and the fight against poverty.

US ELECTIONS AND CUBA

A year ago, when then provisional president Raul Castro made an overture to the US, the response was fundamentalist and hostile, and Havana\'s counter response was the usual: that after fifty years, Washington\'s hostility (the major effect of which has been the suffering of individual Cubans) has not budged the Cuban government, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, the author writes that today, with the US presidential elections fast approaching, Cubans are asking themselves what might change in these stagnated relations that effect them so powerfully. McCain promises more of the same, and we know that Havana will respond in kind, with unity, intransigence, and the rejection of change, whatever the cost. Obama promises certain shifts -in travel policy and remittances to family in Cuba from the US - that would not address the central problem. And even though more and more people, politicians included, recognise that the tactic employed by Washington has not and will not induce Havana to make changes - the contrary is true - the Cuban question, always prominent in electoral season, does not seem likely to produce the fundamental changes that might have a domino effect. Or is it a deadlock that politicians need, and want? Cubans are asking.

A CIVILISATION PREDICATED ON DIALOGUE

There has never been a time when it was more important for us to inspire each other by learning from our differences or holding a creative dialogue of the wise, writes Daisaku Ikeda, a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and peace-builder and president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) grassroots Buddhist movement. Common to all of the thinkers and leaders from various fields and nationalities with whom I have engaged in dialogue over the years is an earnest prayer and deep determination to see the 21st century become a century of peace and dialogue, in contrast to the century of war and violence that was the 20th. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot rise above the divisive crises that confront our contemporary world. Dialogue is the surest path to peace. And it is a path open to all of us, starting from wherever we are, starting now. Dialogue is an adventure, a means of discovering the uniqueness, mystery, and familiarity of humanity. It is the wellspring of ceaseless and unimpeded value creation.

THE G8 HAS NO LEGITIMACY

(IPS/South Centre) The last G8 summit (Hokkaido, Japan,July 7-9) sat in judgment over the democratic credentials of the government of Zimbabwe, but it had itself no legitimacy. The G8 had no choice but to bring the matter to the Security Council of the UN. And there the West lost: China and Russia vetoed, writes Yash Tandon, Executive Director of the South Centre, Geneva. The G8 is no longer even the seat of the powerful. It is a club of the six richest Western countries -France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, United States and Canada, plus one rich Asian country (Japan), plus nearly rich Russia, a former Communist country that was admitted in 1998, but still sits, uncomfortably, in the margins of G7. As it turned out, the so-called G5 developing nations (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) that were invited to Hokkaido as observers, declared that they had no particular appetite for a pre-cooked dinner in which they had no hand in preparing. They constituted themselves into the coalition of the unwilling, and issued their own Political Declaration. On the matter of climate change, for example, they placed targets for the developed countries, calling for quantified emission targets for these countries under the Kyoto Protocol after 2012, \"of at least 25-40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 2050, by between 80 and 95 per cent below those levels, with comparability of efforts among them\". What is needed is a radical reform of the Security Council of the UN, not a patch-up job of the G8 that should, by now, dissolve itself. It does not constitute the international community that it thinks it does.

AFTER OIL: MODERN BIOCIVILISATION

We are at the threshold of the transition out of the oil and, hopefully, the fossil energy age, writes Ignacy Sachs, honourary professor at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris, and visiting fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Sao Paulo. In this article, the author writes that this transition has already begun, prompted by the recent spectacular rise in the cost of oil and the recovery of food prices. To avoid the continued warming of the atmosphere, we must drastically modify our energy use by: altering lifestyles and patterns of consumption; improving energy efficiency; and substituting fossil fuels with renewable energy. We also ought to reopen discussions on a new cycle of rural development to avoid the blind alley of excessive and premature urbanisation. The two objectives could be reconciled by promoting modern biocivilisations, which rest on solar energy harnessed through photosynthesis and explore the multiple uses of biomass - food for humans, fodder for animals, green fertilisers, bioenergies, building materials, fibres, plastics and other products of green chemistry (chemurgy) turned out by biorefineries, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. Biofuels are only a component of a larger whole.

THE FOOD CRISIS AND THE WRONG SOLUTIONS

The structural solution to the problem of world food security is an increase in productivity and production in the low-income food-deficit countries. This would require, in addition to official development assistance, innovative new solutions. To this effect, it is necessary to develop partnership or joint-venture agreements between, on the one hand, those countries that have the financial resources and on the other, those that possess land, water and human resources, writes Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In reality, what is happening is a propensity for one of the two parties to take over the role of the other. Land acquisition and long-term farming leases appear to be favoured by foreign investors. Even in certain countries where land is an asset like any other exchange commodity and is used as a refuge against currency devaluation, protests from farm workers and indigenous populations are frequent. In other cases, the appropriation and distribution of land have become a source of latent conflict. If one adds to this the emotional, or sometimes, mystical value of what constitutes one of the bases of national sovereignty, you can easily imagine the risk of a social outcry when such land falls into foreign hands.

RESILIENCE ECOLOGISTS LOOK TO NATURE FOR STRATEGIES TO STAY AFLOAT IN TURBULENT TIMES

Between floods, droughts, epidemics, food shortages and rising prices, the world seems about to spin off its axis. For all the drama of the past half century, historians and natural scientists tell us that the postwar era has actually been something of an anomaly, a period of relative calm in nature and human events in a world that history has shown to be reliably unpredictable. That hiatus may now be ending. Moreover, they say, we are approaching a threshold moment, a change of phase that will throw every long-held habit and assumption into question. War and revolution are just such moments, but never before have we endured simultaneous transformations of politics, culture and nature, writes Mark Sommer, hosts of A World of Possibilities, an award-winning, internationally syndicated radio program ( www.aworldofpossibilities.com). This transformation is driven in large part by nature's blowback against human misbehavior. And it is to nature that a new school of ecologists say we must now turn for clues about how to survive and thrive in the turbulent times to come. They invoke the term “resilience” to describe the capacity to absorb shocks to the system without losing our ability to function. We're used to seeing resilience in nature and healthy human personalities. But can whole societies become resilient in the face of traumatic transition?

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS ON THE WAY OUT

The 2008 world report on the death penalty from Hands Off Cain confirms that there has been positive movement in the fight to end capital punishment for more than a decade, and highlights the most striking advance yet: the universal moratorium against capital punishment approved by the UN last December, writes Elisabetta Zamparutti, a leader in the Radical Party who prepared the annual report on the Death Penalty in the World for Hands Off Cain. She was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 2008 In this analysis, the author writes that there is one manner in which the resolution could be significantly strengthened: the elimination of the secrecy surrounding the death penalty. Many countries, mostly authoritarian, do not provide official figures on executions, and the general public\'s lack of information is a direct cause of their escalation. Accordingly, a provision should be immediately introduced into the resolution requesting that death-penalty states release to the UN and the general public all information regarding the implementation of capital punishment and executions. On closer examination, it becomes clear that in death penalty countries, the problem goes beyond the specific practice of capital punishment; it is a matter of democracy, the rule of law, the promotion of and respect for political rights and civil liberties.

CUBA: SOCIALIST REALISM

Forty-six years after it was proclaimed, Cuban socialism seems to have finally revived the idea of the value of money as an economic regulator and social catalyst, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, the author writes that real life and political rhetoric are beginning to draw closer to one another. Realism has dawned on the upper echelons of Cuban decision-making, now led by Raul Castro, and was reflected in the President\'s July 11 speech, which focused on the quality and productivity of manual and intellectual labour. Even the government has recognised periodically over the last two years that the wages the state paid were too low. This is realism, and its manifestation can be reduced to this: the people can\'t live only on what the state pays them. The new Cuban government has issued three basic appeals to the country regarding work, saving, and discipline. This is the holy trinity that could provide the system with stability and durability.

BURMA JUNTA EXPLOITS DISASTER TO ADVANCE ITS INTERESTS

Burma\'s military junta is exploiting cyclone Nargis to advance its interests and annihilate supporters of democracy, writes Zin Linn, a former political detainee in Burma who now lives in exile and is presently the media and information director of the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma. Unconcerned by the deaths of thousands of citizens, the military leaders\' only want to hold on to power. The people are starting to think that the UN and other international organisations will not be able to help them achieve basic freedoms. Some analysts argue that the UN and ASEAN failed to help the people of Burma in time, instead soothing the generals, who never had any respect for human rights or humanitarian principles. The UN cancelled its planned weekly press briefings at the Bangkok-based Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand because of pressure from the junta. The demeaning of human values so common still in Burma will cause substantial social unrest and political volatility for years to come.

COLD WAR I AND II – SOLUTIONS ANYONE?

Cold War I came and went, and then, in the mid-1990s, Cold War II began, building on the ruins of Cold War I and now gathering strength, writes Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies, founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. In this analysis, Galtung writes that the Cold War ended because of the non-aligned Helsinki process (1972-75) initiated by Finnish President Kekkonen and because people\'s movements turned against the governments. The Final Act of Helsinki 1975 confirmed borders in Eastern Europe, initiated a mixed economy through investment in the East, and a turn toward human rights in the Soviet Union - all useful. And so the Cold War withered away, devoid of real issues, with no winners and no losers. Solutions today? A Helsinki-style conference. Declare an end - no winner, no loser. The US empire collapses like the Soviet did, and then blossoms. A mixed economy is already there, social if not democratic. Democracy and human rights with self-determination are on the world agenda, in the West too with its numerous Tibets. What we need are non-aligned countries. And massive people\'s movements. Are they coming?

CUBA: HEAT AND SCEPTICISM

Whether they hope for the materialisation of certain wishes or are convinced of certain disappointment, a day looms in the near future for Cuban: July 26, anniversary of the beginning of the armed struggle of Fidel Castro and his followers in 1953, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, Padura writes that it was a year ago that Raul Castro, then interim president, raised hopes for change in a short speech he gave during celebrations of this anniversary. The Cuban economy and society are clearly waiting for -and need- new and deeper changes. Months have passed without the oft- mentioned economic liberalisation that would allow for the creation of small private businesses, the longed-for sale of cars and furniture, the elimination of the burdensome exit visas to leave the country, among other changes that have been spoken of - but which the upper ranks of Cuban decision-making have less and less desire for. What is most worrisome is that this Cuban society that lives on hope continues to show signs (recognised by its leaders) of deterioration and a scepticism that in the opinion of many could block or derail the implementation of changes that could lead it into new directions.

WISDOM OF ANCIENT MAYA FOR MODERN CIVILISATION IN CRISIS

Given the unmistakeable signs that the earth cannot survive the intensified exploitation of her resources, the assault on the dignity of her children, and the exclusion and condemnation to starvation of millions of humans, it is essential that we seek inspiration in other civilisations that offer ecological wisdom, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian writer, liberation theologist, and a comissioner and author of the Earth Charter. In this article for IPS, Boff writes that the Maya believe that the universe is built of and sustained by cosmic energies and that the basic duality between creation and disintegration (we would say between chaos and cosmos) confers dynamism on this universal process. Human well-being derives from our synchronisation with this process and our profound respect for all living beings. Thus human beings feel they are part of Mother Earth and enjoy her beauty and protection. Death is not the enemy but a more profound immersion in the universe. Whereas for us, work is essentially the production of goods and wealth, often disappointing and uncreative, for the Maya, work is helping Mother Earth, who gives us all we need to live, an activity that does not enslave people but allows them to express their abilities and shape their lives. This practical wisdom has great validity for this critical phase of our history. All that helps maintain the equilibrium of the Earth and its vitality should be valued and recognised as a form of regeneration and salvation.

U.S. LAGS BEHIND WORLD OPINION IN LINGERING SUPPORT FOR DEATH PENALTY

It's not easy to explain why, virtually alone among advanced industrial democracies, the United States holds on to the practice of capital punishment. The United Nations General Assembly recently passed a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment and most advanced industrial democracies have outlawed the death penalty. Capital punishment is coming to be seen in much of the world as an ultimate abuse of human rights. In continuing to embrace the practice, the United States finds itself aligned with nations whose human rights records it routinely condemns -China, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Why it persists in this globally unpopular policy and why the American public continues to support it by two-thirds majorities- is a source of puzzlement., writes Mark Sommer, host of A World of Possibilities, an award-winning, internationally syndicated radio program. Today, 35 states have capital punishment laws on their books but just ten maintain active execution programs. A number of Midwestern and Northeastern states have abolished capital punishment. About 3,350 people languish today on \"death row,\" and keeping them there is an immensely expensive proposition. The great majority are poor and a significant number are mentally disturbed. More than 40 percent are African American (four times their proportion in the general population), and disproportionate numbers are Native American, Latino, and Asian. Most experts on the death penalty decline to speculate as to why the United States hold so firmly to capital punishment. It's not enough to say that it's a tenet of conservatism in an era of conservative ascendancy since recent surveys reveal that even Barack Obama, an unapologetic liberal, finds it necessary to support the death penalty in cases in which “the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage.\"

AFRICA: TREES VS DESERTS

Conserving the Congo forest, and indeed all of our forests in Africa, and accelerating forestation efforts is vital to our survival on a continent where the Sahara Desert is expanding to the North and the Kalahari Desert expands to the Southwest, writes Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate, Goodwill Ambassador for the Congo Forest, and founder of the Green Belt Movement. In this article, Maathai writes that for this reason the Congo Basin Forest Fund was launched in London on June 17. The Congo Basin Forest is the world\'s second largest forest ecosystem and considered the planet\'s second lung, after the Amazon. It provides food, shelter, and livelihood for over 50 million people. Covering 200 million hectares and including approximately one-fifth of the world\'s remaining closed-canopy tropical forest, it is also a very significant carbon store with a vital role in regulating the regional climate.Today, in the Congo Basin rainforest increased logging, changing patterns of agriculture, population growth, and the oil and mining industries are all leading to ever greater deforestation.

GEORGE W. BUSH DESERVES NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

The next Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded to George W. Bush, writes Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of IPS. In this column, Savio writes that in just eight years, US president George Bush has managed to profoundly change his country and the world. I doubt that as president Obama would be able to motivate the formation of an opposition as vast as that of the World Social Forum at Porto Alegre. The clamour of hundreds of thousands of people against imperialism and for a different world was the result of the radicalisation produced in this period. Without it, the creation of a global civil society would have been far slower. The first major contribution of Bush was to demonstrate that unilateralism can no longer work in a world that is increasingly multipolar. He definitively disproved the theory that war can resolve conflict and demonstrated that there can be no consensus to govern without respect for international law. The failure to ratify a single international treaty (starting with Kyoto) has aroused growing irritation and as a consequence the treaty against cluster bombs has been ratified by almost every country on earth.

A HISTORIC CROSSROADS FOR BOLIVIA AND EVO MORALES

The social movement of Bolivia remains integrated with President Morales as its symbol, but the government does not seem able to build a new collective identity and a new social order to accommodate it, writes Jose Enrique Pinelo, an activist in Bolivia\'s social movements since 1970. In this article, Pinelo writes that Morales\' project for change must be reflected in the new Political Constitution of the State. The task of government was to convene a Constituent Assembly, redact the constitution, and submit it to popular vote. However, for more than a year the government has lost its political initiative and the Assembly has ceased its work. Morales was charged with safeguarding the strategic character of this process but because of the advance of the opposition, he used it as a tactical negotiating piece. He has called for a recall referendum on the mandate of the president, vice president, and the department prefects to be held on August 10. Thus far it doesn\'t seem likely that the constitutional process will succeed.

A WAR ON POVERTY OR A WAR ON THE POOR?

The latest Human Development Report 2007/2008 of the UNDP on climate change forecasts that in less than 20 years, 2.4 billion human beings will live in shanty towns and poor suburbs that lack water and sanitation and suffer high rates of infant mortality, writes Riccardo Petrella, founder of the International Committee for a World Water Contract, is professor emeritus at the Catholic University of Louvain. In this article for IPS, Petrella writes that the world\'s major political challenge for the next thirty years and beyond is guaranteeing the right to a human life for all: in other words, the complete eradication of poverty from the world, and more precisely, the elimination of those approaches and processes which have led to the mass pauperisation of the world\'s populations. The solution involves a total and radical redefinition of the future of cities in which cities have to be given back to citizens. The author calls shifting the investment and use of local and global resources towards the generation of collective wealth in poor suburbs, namely the production of communal goods: water, health, education, housing, agriculture for local needs, renewable energies, energy saving, etc. This will involve a battle for the global restructuring of the current financial system, whose latest, umpteenth crisis proves such change is absolutely necessary.