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.

Free Rein for Biobanks

Collections of human biological material, such as embryos, semen, blood cells and body tissue, are multiplying in a context of largely unregulated operations.

Safe Sex With AIDS and Without a Condom?

People who are HIV positive but who are undergoing antiretroviral therapy do not transmit the virus, said the top Swiss authority in HIV/AIDS. In most of the world, the statement sounded like permission to abandon the best protection against the epidemic: the condom.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Electric Motorcycle On the Horizon

The electric motorcycle will be able to travel one kilometer per one cent of the Brazilian real (.006 dollars). This super-efficient bike will enter its final testing phase this month and will be launched in 2009 by the Brazilian electric company CPFL.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Petrified Forest to Be National Park

Argentina’s parliament is studying a bill that would create a new national park in the southern province of Santa Cruz in order to preserve its unique petrified forest.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: No Justice for Murdered Ecologists

Environmental and human rights organizations in Honduras have sought measures from the Inter-American Human Rights court following the escape of three of the four policemen implicated in the murder of ecologists Heraldo Zúniga and Roger Iván Murillo.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Eye On Climate Change and Renewable Energy

A scientific report, entrusted to the Veracruzana University of Mexico, will measure the impact of climate change on renewable energy.

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.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Illegal Logging in Native Forest Under Investigation

The investigative police in Chile are looking into a report of illegal logging in a native forest for the construction of a road to a dam on the Cuervo River, a project of the Energía Austral company.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Date Set for Withdrawal of Canadian Mine

The Honduran mining development agency announced the withdrawal, in one year, of the Entremares mining company, a subsidiary of Canada’s Glamis Gold, which launched operations in this country in 2000.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Recycled Plastic for Solar Water Heaters

An apparatus made from discarded plastic containers provides hot water, making use of the abundant solar energy of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná.

Small Hydroelectric Dams Not So Green

An attractive business with a reputation of being eco-friendly, small hydroelectric dams do pose some dangers to the environment, especially if there are many in the same river basin.

“There Are Seven Million People Who Lack AIDS Treatment

Three million people today receive treatment against AIDS. It was what the World Health Organization proposed for 2005, and we are achieving it with difficulty in 2008, but meanwhile there are seven million who lack treatment, says Argentina's Pedro Cahn, co-chair of the 17th International AIDS Conference.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Caribbean Brings Garbage to Shores of Tortuga Island

The sea is the vehicle for pollution of the islands of the southern Caribbean, even the nearly uninhabited ones like La Tortuga, located 150 kilometers northeast of the Venezuelan capital.

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.

The Climate Costs of a Glass of Milk

Pastures with plants that produce less methane and substances that inhibit the nitrogen-fixing of soils are among the solutions the livestock industry is testing in an effort to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change.

“Cancún’s White Sands Wouldn’t Exist Without Coral”

Coral reefs are in trouble, but they could buy some time with good management and protection, while we work to find ways to reduce the impacts of climate change, says Mexican scientist Roberto Iglesias-Prieto in this exclusive Tierramérica interview.