Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Forestry Certification on the Rise

Ten Honduran businesses are pioneers in forestry certification, a practice that is expected to gather strength by the end of the year, according to a program that has the government's backing.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Paper Mill Fined

The company Celulosa Arauco y Constitución (CELCO), located in the 10th Chilean region of Los Lagos, will have to pay a fine of about 60,000 dollars for the foul odors emanating from its mill in 2004, ruled the Appeals Court, upholding a sentence of the health authorities in the city of Valdivia.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Persistent Organic Pollutants Eliminated

Residents of a small community outside the city of Guantánamo, 929 km east of Havana, have turned a dump into an environmental center that has reduced emissions of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) into the atmosphere.

Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Deadly Attacks Against Ecologists

At least 115 environmental activists, technicians and workers have been the subject of violence, kidnapping and even murder in the last 16 years in Guatemala, says a report by the Center for Environmental and Social Legal Action (CALAS).

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.

A New Home for the Blue Whale

A new refuge is in the works for the world's largest mammal. Supporting the initiative to establish a protected marine area in southern Chile are two multimillionaires with investments in the region.

Biodiesel Comes in All Flavors

Brazil is diversifying the raw materials it is using for clean fuel. Waste from coffee production is just one promising option.

Ecobreves – LATIN AMERICA: Jeers for World Bank Transgenics Plan

Latin American environmentalists and social activists closed ranks against the World Bank, which proposes developing biosafety research in the region, through the cultivation of genetically modified maize, potato, yucca and cotton.

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?

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: New Way to Recycle Fluorescent Lights

Researchers at the University of Sao Paulo's Incubator of Technological Enterprise are developing a technology that promises to recover nearly 98 percent of the contaminating materials from used fluorescent lightbulbs.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Reservoirs Regain Water Levels, Rationing Ended

Last weekend the drastic rationing of potable water came to an end in the Honduran capital, after the main reservoirs supplying the city finally regained levels within the normal range.

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.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Orthodox Church Embraces Defense of the Amazon

Aboard a boat, some 150 clerics, scientists, government officials, indigenous leaders and journalists will travel July 13-20 the rivers of the Brazilian Amazon while they discuss environmental questions related to the region, and issues related to water and ethics.

THE THREAT FROM GLOBAL TRADE IMBALANCES

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

WASHINGTON NEO CONS PUSH WORLD WAR III AS ELECTION STRATEGY

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

TREND TO ABOLISH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT CONTINUES

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

Pre-Pandemic Vaccine at the Forefront in Bird Flu Fight

Scientists around the globe are working around the clock in search of vaccines that could improve the human immunological response to a potential flu pandemic.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Beneficial Uses of Tobacco

Cuban scientists announced they are studying the extraction of solanesol from tobacco plants, in a search for additional benefits to the island's famous industry of hand-rolled cigars. The extract is the precursor of an antioxidant with anti-carcinogen properties.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Catholic Cardinal Urges Against Giving In to Gold

Catholic Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez has exhorted the executive and legislative branches of the Honduran government not to give in to pressure from the transnational mining corporations that want to expand open pit mining in this Central American country.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: The Return of the Water Lentil

The lemna sp, a floating green lentil, has made a forceful reappearance this month in Lake Maracaibo in western Venezuela. It has contaminated the shores of the city of Maracaibo and fishing areas, and triggered protests from fishing communities, who demand that the government clear it away.