OTHER COUNTRIES MUST ACT TO CORRECT THE DISASTER OF US-ISRAELI POLICY

The current American-Israeli Middle East policy has caused such enormous damage and such grave problems for both Israel and the West in general that other powers should feel more confident in criticising them and taking vigorous and concerted action, writes Kare Willoch, former Prime Minister and leader of the conservative party in Norway It is clearer than ever that peace in the broader Middle East is impossible without peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Efforts for peace cannot assume that the oppressed must first renounce all violence. History shows that oppressed peoples deprived of all hope for a life of dignity do not renounce violence. Attempts to pressure Lebanon to use force against Hezbollah would be counterproductive. The transition to a single Lebanese armed force will take time. Some may fear that Lebanon could be left defenceless if Hezbollah is disarmed faster than the Lebanese army is built up. And one can\'t expect complete confidence in the UN\'s ability to defend Lebanon after the discouraging experience with UNIFIL, which gave the country no real protection. And some may remember Bosnia, where the UN failed to prevent mass murders of Muslims, not unlike those that Ariel Sharon presided over in the Beirut of 1982.

REGIME CHANGE IN THE US

As the administration finds it harder to spin the tragic fiasco in Iraq, a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, bungling over Hurricane Katrina, immigration policy, the nightmarish Homeland Security Administration, turf battles between the CIA and FBI, spiraling debt, and revelations of corruption, and now the Mark Foley scandal, Americans are also increasingly disenchanted with Democrats, who are often mired in the same Washington sleaze, writes Hazel Henderson, whose new book, \'\'Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy\'\' , covers reform of capitalism and unsustainable, fossilized industrialism. She created the TV series \'\'Ethical Markets\'\' and the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators. In this analysis, Henderson writes that the two-party political duopoly makes a mockery of \'\'bi-partisan\'\' cooperation and hypocritical calls for national unity. Too many voters see only collusion between the powerful corporate and financial special interests and legislators with the burgeoning lobbying industry making the deals that leave out ordinary citizens. The rigidly-controlled two-party system, largely supported by contributions from similar corporations, makes third parties unviable unless led by billionaires. Both parties control the TV debates. Systemic reforms of the US political system are essential and go well beyond regime change:overhaul and standardise elections nationally, abolish the Electoral College, require all election supervisors and officials to be unaffiliated to political parties; require all voting machines be transparent to voters and provide paper ballot receipts, introducing universal health care.

UN SECRETARY-GENERAL UNBOUND

Given the pressures to which the UN is subjected, and the current threats to the very character and underlying values of the international system, the election of a new Secretary General is of great significance, writes Branislav Gosovic, author of books on UNCTAD and UNEP and numerous articles. He headed the South Centre Secretariat 1990-2005. In this article, Gosovic writes that unipolarity and \'\'pensee unique\'\' have put serious constraints on the SG and the Secretariat and reduced the policy space for their action. Furthermore, North-driven reforms supposedly intended to give greater discretionary authority to the SG risk facilitating unilateral political and administrative influence over the Secretariat. The South will need to protect the multilateral character of the UN Secretariat -- the only permanent multilateral structure with a universal, holistic task -- from efforts to reduce it to a merely administrative/management function and make it serve the interests of a few powerful actors. It will need to press for greatly strengthening the Secretariat and so provide the Secretary-General with institutional support inter alia to contribute to evolving democratic forms of multilateral statecraft and global governance.

HIGH ENERGY PRICES FUEL SOLAR BOOM

After decades of frustratingly slow growth, rising energy prices are hastening the dawn of a long-heralded solar renaissance, writes Mark Sommer, host of the internationally-syndicated radio programme, A World of Possibilities. Though still outdistanced by the rapid rise of wind power, silicon-based solar technologies are finally becoming sufficiently efficient to be competitive with conventional energy sources, Sommer writes in this article. Industry experts predict that based on recent advances, further improvements in efficiency will continue, but a real breakthrough to widespread use worldwide awaits development of a technology beyond the painstaking silicon-based manufacturing process. Solar advocates argue that in an era of permanent oil decline, if the photovoltaic industry sustains growth averaging 50 percent or more per year for the next two decades, it will contribute as much as 20 percent of the global energy budget. This is an ambitious, even unlikely rate of growth, but it also presumes no significant technological breakthroughs. And given that necessity is the mother of invention, solar energy may yet surprise us all.

NUCLEAR STATES IN VIOLATION OF NUKE TREATY

As the UN General Assembly in New York grapples yet again with the urgent question of nuclear disarmament, the world would do well to revisit the story of pioneer nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, writes Fredrik S. Heffermehl, President of the Norwegian Peace Alliance, Vice President of the International Peace Bureau and editor at www.peaceispossible.info. In this analysis, Heffermehl writes that exactly twenty years have passed since a major news story using Vanunu as its source removed any doubt that Israel had a nuclear weapons programme. His dramatic abduction by Israel, followed by a secret trial in Jerusalem and 18 years in gaol under cruel conditions, made Vanunu world famous. Few cases more vividly dramatise the utter hypocrisy of nuclear policy. Ten years ago the ICJ in The Hague ruled the use of nuclear arms generally illegal under international law, finding that states have a legally binding obligation to enter into negotiations in good faith -- and reach a specific result-- on nuclear disarmament. There was, however, widespread disappointment with compliance with the ruling, and anti-nuclear and peace groups decided to request from the court more specific clarification of whether the nuclear weapon states have complied with the treaty in the past and what they are obliged to do in the future.

ECOLOGICAL ALARM – WE ARE DOOMED UNLESS WE CHANGE COURSE

It is already evident that the planet cannot support the violence and voraciousness of the current mode of production and consumption, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer and member of the International Commission of the Earth Charter. In this analysis, the author argues that what is needed is a new paradigm of co-existence between nature, earth, and humanity which puts life at the centre and maintains natural and cultural diversity. The foundation of this new ethics has been set out in two documents: the Earth Charter, an international initiative adopted by UNESCO in 2000; and the Manifesto for Life, approved in 2002 by the environment ministers of Latin America. Both have much in common with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The mission of the human being, as the bearer of consciousness, intelligence, will, and love, is to take care of the earth, to be the gardener of this splendid garden of Eden. This mission must be urgently undertaken, because the earth, life, and humanity are sick and threatened in their entirety.

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\'\'.

WHAT HOPE FOR GLOBAL ACTION ON MIGRATION?

Governments are beginning to acknowledge the urgent need for international policies that address the root causes of migration, like poverty and the demand for migrant labour, writes Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and currently President of Realising Rights: The Ethical Globalisation Initiative. In this analysis, Robinson writes that protecting migrants\' rights is central to any effective migration management. One important way to ensure that human rights issues are firmly on the agenda is to involve civil society and migrants themselves. Robinson observes that migrants with opportunities for decent and legal work contribute more to development than those who are exploited, and that policies which promote human rights like legalisation of status and access to health and housing build the capacity of diaspora communities and help their integration, even while maintaining close ties to their countries of origin.

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.

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.

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.

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.