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importantMordechai Vanunu jailed by Israeli court for unauthorised meetingsIsraeli whistleblower, who spent 18 years in jail for exposing Israel's nuclear arsenal, given new three-month sentence Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli whistleblower who exposed Israel's nuclear arsenal to the world and paid for it with 18 years in jail, mostly in solitary confinement, was sent back to prison today for a new three-month sentence. Vanunu, 56, was jailed for unauthorised meetings with foreigners, including his Norwegian girlfriend. Amnesty International said he had been living under a "draconian" military order and was now considered a "prisoner of conscience". Moroccan-born Vanunu, a former technician at Israel's secret nuclear plant near Dimona, appeared at the Jerusalem district court today, where he was led away to jail. "I survived 18 years – I could survive another six," he shouted. "Are you trying to discipline me? You cannot take my freedom of expression away ... You won't get from me in three months what you didn't get in 18 years." In April 2007 he was convicted of meeting foreigners, including journalists and his girlfriend, and was sentenced to six months. That was reduced to three months on appeal and he was given the option of community service in West Jerusalem. Vanunu said he feared being attacked and would only do the service in Arab East Jerusalem, where he lives. The court refused and today he was jailed. "Shame on you Israel," Vanunu said: "The stupid Shin Bet and Mossad spies are putting me back in prison after 24 years of speaking nothing but the truth. Shame on you democracy, the Knesset, synagogues and the world media. Shame on you all the Arabs that are allowing me to be put back in prison. Shame on you Senate, congress, and the chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency for not protecting my freedom. Shame on you all the world's religions, the stupid spies, the Jews, Christians and Muslims." "Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons but no one is talking about it," he said. The world doesn't want nuclear weapons – not in Israel, not in the Middle East and not anywhere in the world." Vanunu, a convert from Judaism to Christianity, was kidnapped in a honeytrap set by the Mossad agents in Rome in September 1986. Days earlier he had spoken to Sunday Times journalists, giving them information on Israel's secret nuclear programme. His details and pictures were enough to convince foreign experts that Israel already had a significant nuclear arsenal. He was secretly taken to Israel by ship, tried and jailed for 18 years. He spent the first 11 years in solitary confinement. In April 2004 he was released, but was subjected to restrictions under a military order renewed every six months. He was not allowed to leave the country or to have unauthorised meetings with foreigners or to visit foreign embassies. Amnesty International said the restrictions were not parole, because Vanunu had already served his full term. "They arbitrarily limit his rights to freedom of movement, expression and association and are therefore in breach of international law," Amnesty said. Rory McCarthyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Rory McCarthy The Financial Crisis Is Far From OverI give really, really boring advice. For years it has not changed a whit, and that's just not the way to run a newsletter business. There should be some movement, some pizazz, new things to ponder. Instead I just keep saying the same thing over and over again. Buy gold (and silver, too). This is what I've been saying for the past seven years, ever since gold was in the $300's and silver was under $5, so you might be tempted to think I am simply another gold bug. While I confess to finding a certain allure in heavy bullion coins - they sound great tossed on a counter and feel good in my hand - I am not really a gold bug. Instead, what I am is a gigantic, unrelenting, anti-fiat-currency bug. Well, at least I am anti-mismanaged fiat currencies, but that pretty much encompasses them all to varying degrees. As with all investment,s I have an exit strategy in my mind that will dictate when I sell my gold and silver to place those funds in other productive investments. Unfortunately, that day seems further away than ever. Let me explain why. read more » cmartensonTHE DECLINE OF THE WESTMost analysts (at least the ones that are worth reading) contend that the sovereign default crisis (Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc.) in the EU is about the collapse of a system that created monetary union without a political union. It isn't. That's actually a narrow, parochial view. Instead, the current sovereign debt crisis is about something much more interesting: it's another battle in a war for dominance between "our" integrated, impersonal global economic system and traditional nation-states. At issue is whether a nation-state serves the interests of the governed or it serves the interests of a global economic system. Who's winning? The global economic system, of course. The 2008 financial crisis, the first real battle of this war (as opposed to the early losses in skirmishes in Russia, Argentina, the Balkans, etc.), generated a very decisive outcome. It was a resounding defeat for nation-states.* The current crisis in the EU will almost certainly end with the same results. When this war ends, and it won't be long, the global economic and financial system will be the victor. Once that occurs, the nation-states of the West will join those of the global south as hollow states: mere shells of states that serve only to enforce the interests of the global economic system. These new states, more market-states than nation-states, will offer citizens a mere vestige of the public goods they offered historically. Incomes will fall to developing world levels (made easy to due highly portable productivity), and wealth will stratify. Regulatory protections will be weak. Civil service pensions will be erased and corruption will reign. The once dominant militaries of the West will be reduced to a small fraction of their current size, and their focus will be on the maintenance of internal control rather than on external threats. The clear and unambiguous message to every citizen of the West will be: You are on your own. You are in direct competition with everyone else in the world, and your success or failure is something you alone control. For those that think that this will bring about a surge of peaceful economic vigor, you will be wrong. It will fragment society and lead to perpetual stagnation/depression, endemic violence/corruption, and squalor. For absent any moral basis (a social compact), stability, or (widely shared) prosperity: new sources of order will emerge to fill the gap left by the hollowing out of the nation-state. These new sources of order will be first seen in the rise of the criminal entrepreneur, whether they be the besuited corporate gangster or the gang tattooed thug. For in the world of hollow states (without a morality that limits behavior) and limitless connectivity to the global economic system, these criminal entrepreneurs quickly become dominant, violently coercing or corrupting everyone in the path to their enrichment. As this occurs, you have a choice.
* An ambush that yielded: excessive debt, endless deficits, state guarantees (against financial system failure), and moral ambiguity/corruption. THE DECLINE OF THE WESTMost analysts (at least the ones that are worth reading) contend that the sovereign default crisis (Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc.) in the EU is about the collapse of a system that created monetary union without a political union. It isn't. That's actually a narrow, parochial view. Instead, the current sovereign debt crisis is about something much more interesting: it's another battle in a war for dominance between "our" integrated, impersonal global economic system and traditional nation-states. At issue is whether a nation-state serves the interests of the governed or it serves the interests of a global economic system. Who's winning? The global economic system, of course. The 2008 financial crisis, the first real battle of this war (as opposed to the early losses in skirmishes in Russia, Argentina, the Balkans, etc.), generated a very decisive outcome. It was a resounding defeat for nation-states.* The current crisis in the EU will almost certainly end with the same results. When this war ends, and it won't be long, the global economic and financial system will be the victor. Once that occurs, the nation-states of the West will join those of the global south as hollow states: mere shells of states that serve only to enforce the interests of the global economic system. These new states, more market-states than nation-states, will offer citizens a mere vestige of the public goods they offered historically. Incomes will fall to developing world levels (made easy to due highly portable productivity), and wealth will stratify. Regulatory protections will be weak. Civil service pensions will be erased and corruption will reign. The once dominant militaries of the West will be reduced to a small fraction of their current size, and their focus will be on the maintenance of internal control rather than on external threats. The clear and unambiguous message to every citizen of the West will be: You are on your own. You are in direct competition with everyone else in the world, and your success or failure is something you alone control. For those that think that this will bring about a surge of peaceful economic vigor, you will be wrong. It will fragment society and lead to perpetual stagnation/depression, endemic violence/corruption, and squalor. For absent any moral basis (a social compact), stability, or (widely shared) prosperity: new sources of order will emerge to fill the gap left by the hollowing out of the nation-state. These new sources of order will be first seen in the rise of the criminal entrepreneur, whether they be the besuited corporate gangster or the gang tattooed thug. For in the world of hollow states (without a morality that limits behavior) and limitless connectivity to the global economic system, these criminal entrepreneurs quickly become dominant, violently coercing or corrupting everyone in the path to their enrichment. As this occurs, you have a choice.
* An ambush that yielded: excessive debt, endless deficits, state guarantees (against financial system failure), and moral ambiguity/corruption. Community Forge goes Fremium!Ning recently announced that it would stop providing sites for free. Now Community Forge is bucking the trend by switching back to the Fremium model. Are we crazy? How will we survive - especially in this economic climate? matslats22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission TeamSource: Student Researcher: Sarah Maddox Barack Obama appointed eleven members of the Trilateral Commission to top-level and key positions in his administration within his first ten days in office. This represents a very narrow source of international leadership inside the Obama administration, with a core agenda that is not necessarily in support of working people in the United States. Obama was groomed for the presidency by key members of the Trilateral Commission. Most notably, Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, has been Obama’s principal foreign policy advisor. According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only eighty-seven members from the United States (the other 337 members are from other countries). Thus, within two weeks of his inauguration, Obama’s appointments encompassed more than 12 percent of Commission’s entire US membership. Trilateral appointees include: There are many other links in the Obama administration to the Trilateral Commission. For instance, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is married to Commission member William Jefferson Clinton. Trilateralist Brent Scowcroft has been an unofficial advisor to Obama and was mentor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. And Robert Zoelick, current president of the World Bank appointed during the G.W. Bush administration, is a member. According to the Trilateral Commissions’ website, the Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system. The website says, “The membership of the Trilateral Commission is composed of about 400 distinguished leaders in business, media, academia, public service (excluding current national Cabinet Ministers), labor unions, and other non-governmental organizations from the three regions. The regional chairmen, deputy chairmen, and directors constitute the leadership of the Trilateral Commission, along with an Executive Committee including about 40 other members.” Two strong convictions guide the Commission’s agenda for the 2009-2012 triennium. First, the Trilateral Commission is to remain as important as ever in maintaining wealthy countries’ shared leadership in the wider international system. Second, the Commission will “widen its framework to reflect broader changes in the world.” Thus, the Japan Group has become a Pacific Asian Group, which includes Chinese and Indian members, and Mexican members have been added to the North American Group. The European Group continues to widen in line with the enlargement of the EU. Update by Patrick Wood The conflict of interest is glaring. With 75 percent of the Trilateral membership consisting of non-US individuals, what influence does this super-majority have on the remaining 25 percent? Many European members of the Trilateral Commission are also top leaders of the European Union. What political and economic sway do they have through their American counterparts? In light of today’s unprecedented financial crisis, they would be abhorred if they actually read Zbigniew Brzezinski’s (co-founder of the Commission with David Rockefeller) statement from his 1971 book, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, which states that, “The nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.” Why have the American people been kept in the dark about a subject so great that it shakes our country to its very core? For more information, this writer’s original 1978 book, Trilaterals Over Washington, is available in electronic form at no charge at http://www.AugustReview.com. This site also has many papers analyzing various aspects of the Trilateral Commission’s hegemony in the United States and elsewhere, since it’s founding in 1973. 22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission TeamSource: Student Researcher: Sarah Maddox Barack Obama appointed eleven members of the Trilateral Commission to top-level and key positions in his administration within his first ten days in office. This represents a very narrow source of international leadership inside the Obama administration, with a core agenda that is not necessarily in support of working people in the United States. Obama was groomed for the presidency by key members of the Trilateral Commission. Most notably, Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, has been Obama’s principal foreign policy advisor. According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only eighty-seven members from the United States (the other 337 members are from other countries). Thus, within two weeks of his inauguration, Obama’s appointments encompassed more than 12 percent of Commission’s entire US membership. Trilateral appointees include: There are many other links in the Obama administration to the Trilateral Commission. For instance, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is married to Commission member William Jefferson Clinton. Trilateralist Brent Scowcroft has been an unofficial advisor to Obama and was mentor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. And Robert Zoelick, current president of the World Bank appointed during the G.W. Bush administration, is a member. According to the Trilateral Commissions’ website, the Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system. The website says, “The membership of the Trilateral Commission is composed of about 400 distinguished leaders in business, media, academia, public service (excluding current national Cabinet Ministers), labor unions, and other non-governmental organizations from the three regions. The regional chairmen, deputy chairmen, and directors constitute the leadership of the Trilateral Commission, along with an Executive Committee including about 40 other members.” Two strong convictions guide the Commission’s agenda for the 2009-2012 triennium. First, the Trilateral Commission is to remain as important as ever in maintaining wealthy countries’ shared leadership in the wider international system. Second, the Commission will “widen its framework to reflect broader changes in the world.” Thus, the Japan Group has become a Pacific Asian Group, which includes Chinese and Indian members, and Mexican members have been added to the North American Group. The European Group continues to widen in line with the enlargement of the EU. Update by Patrick Wood The conflict of interest is glaring. With 75 percent of the Trilateral membership consisting of non-US individuals, what influence does this super-majority have on the remaining 25 percent? Many European members of the Trilateral Commission are also top leaders of the European Union. What political and economic sway do they have through their American counterparts? In light of today’s unprecedented financial crisis, they would be abhorred if they actually read Zbigniew Brzezinski’s (co-founder of the Commission with David Rockefeller) statement from his 1971 book, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, which states that, “The nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.” Why have the American people been kept in the dark about a subject so great that it shakes our country to its very core? For more information, this writer’s original 1978 book, Trilaterals Over Washington, is available in electronic form at no charge at http://www.AugustReview.com. This site also has many papers analyzing various aspects of the Trilateral Commission’s hegemony in the United States and elsewhere, since it’s founding in 1973. Michael Tomasky: Dick Cheney and the oil spillAs we know from our own comment threads right here on this very blog, right-wingers are expert at taking a few facts from situations that appear to be superficially similar but really aren't upon reflection or closer examination and using them to attack liberals. And so, in the last few days, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has become Obama's Katrina. Um...look, I'm as pro-pelican as the next guy, and obviously I don't mean to gainsay the scope of this environmental catastrophe, which will end up being staggering. But Katrina killed about 1,500 humans. And no, it's not George Bush's personal fault that they died, either. But I still rate Katrina a far bigger tragedy for that reason. And now it turns out, according to an environmental lawyer whose interview on Ed Schultz last week is getting a lot of circulation, that this leak may well be traceable in part to...Dick Cheney. How? It's hardly as far-fetched as it sounds. From the Wall Street Journal: The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills. The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week... ... regulators in two major oil-producing countries, Norway and Brazil, in effect require them. Norway has had acoustic triggers on almost every offshore rig since 1993. The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, according to the agency overseeing offshore drilling. The agency, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, says it decided the remote device wasn't needed because rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well. The U.K., where BP is headquartered, doesn't require the use of acoustic triggers. The Journal's report doesn't come out and say this, but the environmental lawyer, Mike Papantonio, said on the Schultz show in an interview you can watch here that it was Cheney's energy task force - the secretive one that he wouldn't say much about publicly - that decided that the switches, which cost $500,000, were too much a burden on the industry. The Papantonio segment starts at around 5:00 in and lasts three minutes or so. In the interests of disclosure I will note that I haven't heard the phrase "acoustic switch" until this weekend, so I don't really know. And obviously the fact that the US isn't alone in not requiring this switch indicates that there are legitimate questions about cost v. efficacy. So maybe it's just one of those things. But then again, maybe it's not. Regulatory decisions have consequences all the time, and the people who made them should be asked to justify their decisions in a democracy. It'll be very interesting to watch this week and see if other news outlets pursue this. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Michael Tomasky 6. Radical Plan From Newt Gingrich’s Think Tank To Gut FDASOURCE: MOTHER JONES, September/October 1995, “agency under attack;” Author: Leslie Weiss SYNOPSIS: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), sometimes criticized in the past for being too cozy with corporations, is now under attack for exactly the opposite reason. A powerful bloc of critics in the drug industry has joined hands with the Republican Congress and together they are pushing to overhaul the FDA. These critics claim the FDA is too tough on drug companies, unnecessarily inhibits innovation, and delays approval of new drugs and medical devices. Leading the charge in Congress is Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who has labeled the FDA the “number one job killer” in the country, and called its head, David Kessler, “a bully and a thug.” Gingrich’s Progress & Freedom Foundation has a radical plan to privatize much of the FDA supervision of drugs and medical devices. If enacted the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s plan will place responsibility for drug development, testing, and review in the hands of private firms hired by the drug companies themselves, while retaining a weakened FDA to rubber-stamp their recommendations. Additionally, the plan limits the liability of drug companies that sell dangerous drugs to the public. Under the plan, government-licensed firms called DCBs (drug or device certifying bodies) would be retained by drug companies to develop, test, and review new products. According to the proposal, “competition between firms would inevitably produce a lower-cost, faster, and higher-quality development and approval process.” FDA spokesperson Jim O’Hara charged, “What this report proposes is dismantling many of the safeguards that protect the public from drugs and devices that are unsafe or just don’t work. This is basically a proposal that says public health and safety are commodities for the marketplace.” Though drug testing and review would be privatized under the plan, the FDA would still exist and would theoretically have the final say on new products. However, the report states there would be “a strong presumption that private certification decisions would not be overturned without substantial cause.” Further, the FDA would not be authorized to request additional testing or data, and it would “have to exercise its veto within a fixed time period (e.g. 90 days) after which the drug or device would automatically receive FDA approval.” The Progress & Freedom Foundation plan also limits the drug company’s liability should a patient be injured or killed by a dangerous drug or medical device. According to the plan, a victim could not sue for punitive damages if the manufacturer of the product could show it met regulatory standards (no matter how weakened they were) during development and testing. Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, says the plan to limit corporate liability is “hypocrisy at the very least.” Even some in the drug industry feel it goes too far. Not surprisingly, the foundation has financial backing from some of the biggest names in the pharmaceutical industry, including Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Eli Lilly & Co., and Marion Merell Dow. Another drug manufacturer, Glaxo, has given an undisclosed amount to the foundation, in addition to contributions of approximately $325,000 to the Republican Party and Republican candidates. As a whole, the drug industry contributed more than $1.6 million to the Republican Party in the 1993-94 election cycle. SSU Censored Researcher: Tina Duccini COMMENTS: Author Leslie Weiss said the plan to strip the FDA of its power did not receive sufficient coverage in the mass media. “Once I learned of the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s (PFF) proposal to gut the FDA, I was surprised at the lack of coverage it received. When PFF released the report, it received coverage only in the Wall Street Journal (and then, of course, in Mother Jones).” When asked why the general public should know more about this issue, Weiss said, “For most of us, reliance on therapeutic drugs and devices for healing is second nature. We expect quality and depend on the FDA to ensure it. Our lives depend on it. Any discussion of altering the safeguards that protect us from potentially dangerous drugs or medical devices must take place in a public forum; otherwise, we risk falling victim—financially and physically—to what easily could become an unregulated industry.” Weiss charged, “Drug and medical device producers, with their well-financed lobbying armies, are the only beneficiaries of limited media coverage on this subject. Reduced safety regulations and clinical testing periods reduce their costs by millions of dollars. So does reducing liability regulation.” UK relies on 'virtual' water from drought-prone countries, says reportWater embedded in imported goods puts severe pressure on areas already short of water, say experts Britain and other rich countries depend heavily on importing hidden "virtual" water from places that regularly experience droughts and shortages, according a report published today by the Royal Society of Engineers. Although the UK is notoriously wet, it is estimated that two-thirds of all the water that its population of 60 million people needs comes embedded in imported food, clothes and industrial goods. The result is that when people buy flowers from Kenya, beef from Botswana, or fruit and vegetables from parts of Asia and Latin America, they may be exacerbating droughts and undermining countries' efforts to grow food for themselves, say the authors. According to the report, the average Briton uses nearly 3,000 litres of imported water a year. One kilogram of beef needs 15,000 litres of water to produce, more than 10 times the amount required to produce the same weight of wheat. A T-shirt requires 2,700 litres. "We must recognise how the UK's water footprint is impacting on global water scarcity. We should ask whether it is right to import green beans – or even roses – from water-stressed countries like Kenya," said professor Peter Guthrie, chair of the group of engineers who compiled the report. "The burgeoning demand for water from developed countries is putting severe pressure on areas that are already short of water. Our water footprint is critical", he said. The report backs analysis by the UK chief scientist, John Beddington, the World Bank and others who say that water shortages are worsening, especially in developing countries. More than 700 million people in 43 countries are now regularly affected by water scarcity and this is expected to grow as a result of climate change, population growth, the switch to meat-based diets in countries such as China, rapid urbanisation in Asia and the pollution of rivers and lakes in many developing countries. "By 2030 demand for food will increase by 30% and for water by 30%. Potentially we have a global crisis," said Guthrie. The report said that many countries were now using water unsustainably, by turning to desalination, which demands large amounts of energy, and by drawing on "fossil" ground water laid down millions of years ago. Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia are taking vast quantities of fossil water from deep wells in the Sahara desert. Eventually this resource will be depleted and alternative source will be needed," it said. "In many regions, the demand for water is already much greater than the available supply. This affects developing countries where many people do not have access to safe water, and the developed world where burgeoning demand simply cannot continue to be met," it said. The authors called for consumers to be aware of the water they were unwittingly using, and for governments to address the international trade of commodities that required large amounts of water to produce. In 2008, green group the WWF warned that the UK has become the sixth largest net importer of water in the world. John Vidalguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds John Vidal Magnets 'can modify our morality'
Scientists have shown they can change people's moral judgements by disrupting a specific area of the brain with magnetic pulses.(author unknown)12239350516238287531161730618180974015641765726325489165206700054022677123905606053173648325745392350821520413070359401201527891475705410160114043080472048944331266178125009057410407895628714485473021008429315090043158161427313528623454302111187290474781615611017992801943706490921545786457920502544518400238433623737386
Gulf Stream 'is not slowing down'
Scientists confirm that there is no slowing of the Gulf Stream ocean current, as predicted by some models of climate change.(author unknown)161730618180974015641677718065039194246212661781250090574104
Paying Zero for Public Services
From World Bank Blog
Submitted by Fumiko Nagano on Tue, 12/29/2009 Imagine that you are an old lady from a poor household in a town in the outskirts of Chennai city, India. All you have wanted desperately for the last year and a half is to get a title in your name for the land you own, called patta. You need this land title to serve as a collateral for a bank loan you have been hoping to borrow to finance your granddaughter’s college education. But there has been a problem: the Revenue Department official responsible for giving out the patta has been asking you to pay a little fee for this service. That’s right, a bribe. But you are poor (you are officially assessed to be below the poverty line) and you do not have the money he wants. And the most absurd part about the scenario you find yourself in is that this is a public service that should be rendered to you free of charge in the first place. What would you do? You might conclude, as you have done for the last 1-1/2 years, that there isn’t much you can do…but wait, you just heard about a local NGO by the name of 5th Pillar and it just happened to give you a powerful ally: a zero rupee note. In Doha last month, CommGAP learned about the work of 5th Pillar, which has a unique initiative to mobilize citizens to fight corruption. In India, petty corruption is pervasive – people often face situations where they are asked to pay bribes for public services that should be provided free. 5th Pillar distributes zero rupee notes in the hopes that ordinary Indians can use these notes as a means to protest demands for bribes by public officials. I recently spoke with Vijay Anand, 5th Pillar’s president, to learn more about this fascinating initiative. According to Anand, the idea was first conceived by an Indian physics professor at the University of Maryland, who, in his travels around India, realized how widespread bribery was and wanted to do something about it. He came up with the idea of printing zero-denomination notes and handing them out to officials whenever he was asked for kickbacks as a way to show his resistance. Anand took this idea further: to print them en masse, widely publicize them, and give them out to the Indian people. He thought these notes would be a way to get people to show their disapproval of public service delivery dependent on bribes. The notes did just that. The first batch of 25,000 notes were met with such demand that 5th Pillar has ended up distributing one million zero-rupee notes to date since it began this initiative. Along the way, the organization has collected many stories from people using them to successfully resist engaging in bribery. One such story was our earlier case about the old lady and her troubles with the Revenue Department official over a land title. Fed up with requests for bribes and equipped with a zero rupee note, the old lady handed the note to the official. He was stunned. Remarkably, the official stood up from his seat, offered her a chair, offered her tea and gave her the title she had been seeking for the last year and a half to obtain without success. Had the zero rupee note reached the old lady sooner, her granddaughter could have started college on schedule and avoided the consequence of delaying her education for two years. In another experience, a corrupt official in a district in Tamil Nadu was so frightened on seeing the zero rupee note that he returned all the bribe money he had collected for establishing a new electricity connection back to the no longer compliant citizen. Anand explained that a number of factors contribute to the success of the zero rupee notes in fighting corruption in India. First, bribery is a crime in India punishable with jail time. Corrupt officials seldom encounter resistance by ordinary people that they become scared when people have the courage to show their zero rupee notes, effectively making a strong statement condemning bribery. In addition, officials want to keep their jobs and are fearful about setting off disciplinary proceedings, not to mention risking going to jail. More importantly, Anand believes that the success of the notes lies in the willingness of the people to use them. People are willing to stand up against the practice that has become so commonplace because they are no longer afraid: first, they have nothing to lose, and secondly, they know that this initiative is being backed up by an organization—that is, they are not alone in this fight. This last point—people knowing that they are not alone in the fight—seems to be the biggest hurdle when it comes to transforming norms vis-à-vis corruption. For people to speak up against corruption that has become institutionalized within society, they must know that there are others who are just as fed up and frustrated with the system. Once they realize that they are not alone, they also realize that this battle is not unbeatable. Then, a path opens up—a path that can pave the way for relatively simple ideas like the zero rupee notes to turn into a powerful social statement against petty corruption.noreply@blogger.com (Mira Luna)15136894581624788891 JOURNAL: OSW Standing Orders (compilation)Here's a compilation of the standing orders series for open source warfare from last year. Probably need to add some more. Hedge Funds and the Global Economic Meltdown on Vimeo
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Is Income Equality the Killer App?
From Shareable.net
Why More Equality? Our thirty years research shows that: 1) In rich countries, a smaller gap between rich and poor means a happier, healthier, and more successful population. Just look at the US, the UK, Portugal, and New Zealand in the top right of this graph, doing much worse than Japan, Sweden or Norway in the bottom left. 2) Meanwhile, more economic growth will NOT lead to a happier, healthier, or more successful population. In fact, there is no relation between income per head and social well-being in rich countries. 3) If the UK were more equal, we'd be better off as a population. For example, the evidence suggests that if we halved inequality here: - Murder rates would halve - Mental illness would reduce by two thirds - Obesity would halve - Imprisonment would reduce by 80% - Teen births would reduce by 80% - Levels of trust would increase by 85% 4) It's not just poor people who do better. The evidence suggests people all the way up would benefit, although it's true that the poorest would gain the most. 5) These findings hold true, whether you look across developed nations, or across the 50 states of the USA.noreply@blogger.com (Mira Luna) Ahmadinejad: the United States are guilty of the "greatest robbery in History"
Speaking before the representatives of the D8 (a group of 8 developing countries made up of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan and Turkey), the Iranian president denounced the world financial system. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sustained that over the past 30 years the United States printed 29 000 billion dollars worth of Treasury bonds and fiat money without any real backing. With this fictitious currency, they took possession of the world's most important resources, pulling off \"the greatest robbery in the History of humanity\".(author unknown)1657272441176682183614936088195576994816
A passage to world power | Randeep RameshThe reality of India I saw was often grim. Yet the country still confounds those who write it off In my six years there, it was hard not to be infected by the hubris of India – a nation that feels part of history, an essential actor on the global stage. Yet even as I admired a country that had thrived as a democracy despite unbounded poverty, mass illiteracy and entrenched social divides, experiencing India as a reporter was a string of enervating and dispiriting episodes. Whether I was visiting a rural police station where half-naked men were hung from the ceiling during an interrogation, or talking to the parents of a baby bulldozed to death in a slum clearance, the romance of India's idealism was undone by its awful daily reality. The venality, mediocrity and indiscipline of its ruling class would be comical but for the fact that politicians appeared incapable of doing anything for the 836 million people who live on 25p a day. The selling of public office for private gain was so bad that the only way to make poverty history in India would be to make every person a politician. Last year the wealth of local representatives in the northern state of Haryana rose at an astonishing rate of £10,000 a month. Their constituents were lucky if their income increased by a few pounds. The burden of democracy in India, to borrow from Yeats, the Irish poet influenced by mystical Hindu thought, was that "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity". Yet the country continues to confound those who write it off. I saw India redeemed repeatedly by three quirks of history: a written liberal constitution, religions rendered ethical, and a talent for sabotage. Take the last first. India won independence not through war or revolution but through non-co-operation, protest and the quiet subversion of the economy. Civil society in India has acquired an unrivalled mastery of such skills, and campaigners have been quicker than politicians to realise that democracy will not prevail unless its proponents show success at governing. Consequently, it was activists who shamed the government last year into enacting a law to make children's education compulsory. India's constitution, the longest in the world, has become a moral compass for justice in a society where violence had been the best measure of one's power and standing. When homosexual sex was legalised by Delhi's high court last summer, the judges said the old law criminalising the gay community was in violation of the constitution. By appealing to the highest sense of being Indian, the bench ended years of homophobia. To claim faith has enabled Indians to come together might seem far-fetched. British India was rent asunder by religion, and one of my first reporting tasks was to visit Muslim victims of state-sponsored pogroms. Yet such violence appeared more political than theological. Indeed, during my time in India it was Europe that appeared unable to embrace religious diversity. While I awoke each day to the sound of the muezzin, the Swiss voted to outlaw the construction of minarets. France's president Nicolas Sarkozy wants to ban the burka; Britain's Jack Straw asks women to remove veils in meetings and the Turks wait, still, to join the EU. Europe's liberalism looked like a straitjacket of unspoken Christian values. India's philosophy emphasised not what you believed but how you behaved. Lead a compassionate, religious life and the state would leave you alone. This thinking meant Indian streets are shared by people who look, dress and pray differently – making them a celebration of the nation's diversity. Diverse, yes: but it's an open question whether the society being created by these forces is a fair one. India is perhaps the most unequal country on the planet, with a tiny elite engorged on the best education, biggest landholdings and largest incomes. Those born on the bottom rungs of the social hierarchy suffer a legacy of caste bigotry, rural servitude and class discrimination. Politics in India is increasingly becoming a debate about the haves and have-nots, and this is given violent expression by a rise in bloody Maoist guerrilla terror. Delhi's stance in global talks is being reduced to the impact on poverty. Whether the matter is climate change, trade talks or nuclear weapons, India has forced wealthier nations to acknowledge that international relations are about power and morals. It negotiates with a hand yet to be dealt: in a few decades it will be the world's third largest economy. Coming back to London has meant returning to a country that lives in the shadow of its former colony. Britain may see itself as a major power, sending troops to pacify Islamist insurgents and spreading good governance globally. These delusions will leave us morbidly disappointed. Unlike Indians, we are not on the cusp of a stirring transformation. Overspent and overstretched, we perch instead on the crest of a falling wave. Randeep Rameshguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Randeep Ramesh |
