UN agency calls on Israel to lift book blockade of Gaza schools

The main United Nations agency caring for Palestinian refugees today called on Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza to allow in educational materials for schools, stressing that these can serve as a major weapon in promoting tolerance and peace.

Yemen: UN humanitarian official to visit war-torn north amid mounting crisis

A senior United Nations humanitarian official is slated to set off for Yemen today to assess the needs of tens of thousands of people uprooted by the armed conflict raging in the north between Government forces and rebels.

Dangerous radioactive sources removed from Lebanon by UN agency

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has safely removed powerful radioactive sources out of Lebanon, including Cobalt-60, a single source of which is enough to kill a person within minutes if directly exposed.

Erasing Katrina: Four Years On, Media Mostly Neglect An Ongoing Disaster

Media Advisory

Erasing Katrina: Four years on, media mostly neglect an ongoing disaster

9/2/09

August 29 marked the fourth anniversary of the day Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The devastation wrought by both the hurricane itself and the government’s inept response prompted remarkably critical corporate media coverage that promised to fight for Katrina survivors and change the way we talk about poverty and race (FAIR Media Advisory, 9/9/05).

As NBC’s Brian Williams told the St. Petersburg Times (3/1/06), “If this does not spark a national discussion on class, race, the environment, oil, Iraq, infrastructure and urban planning, I think we’ve failed.” But four years later, corporate media outlets seem to have largely forgotten about Katrina and its survivors, let alone the conversations about race and poverty that were supposed to accompany it.

The Institute for Southern Studies issued a report (8-9/09) in which more than 50 Gulf Coast community leaders graded officials on their response to the ongoing disaster; the Obama administration received a D+, while Congress received a D. (George W. Bush received a D- in an earlier survey.) One million people are still displaced, rebuilding continues at a glacial pace, and the levees being rebuilt have been judged insufficient to protect New Orleans from another Katrina-level flood.

But amazingly, according to a search of the Nexis news media database, neither the Washington Post nor the L.A. Times ran a single piece on Katrina in the past week. ABC and Fox News didn’t mention the hurricane or its aftermath once.

CBS ran two segments (8/28/09, 8/31/09), as well as a brief headline (8/29/09) on Barack Obama’s weekly radio address that discussed post-Katrina reconstruction. The one mention on MSNBC came on the Ed Show (8/27/09), when host Ed Schultz singled out right-wing talk radio host Neal Boortz for his hateful remarks about displaced Katrina survivors, such as his recent commentary: “Obama wants to rebuild New Orleans? Why? ‘Build it and they will come’? ‘They’? The debris that Katrina chased out?”

NBC ran four segments, all of which put a remarkably upbeat spin on the situation. In one piece (8/30/09), reporter Ron Mott declared that while a third of the homes in New Orleans are still vacant or abandoned, “positive news abounds. The population is steadily climbing as are test scores in the overhauled public school system.” Another segment (8/30/09) reported that “the city and its most famous cultural treasure are now well on the mend,” while a day earlier (8/29/09), Saturday Today anchor Lester Holt introduced a short piece on “encouraging new signs for the city,” in which reporter Mott announced that “much has improved and a lot of people are working.”

The New York Times published a few pieces on Katrina, including an op-ed chart (8/28/09) and a report (8/30/09) on Obama’s speech. The cover story of its weekend magazine (8/30/09) was a long piece by Sheri Fink, of the nonprofit journalism outfit ProPublica, on the “deadly choices” at a New Orleans hospital following the hurricane–one of the few anniversary pieces to touch even obliquely on issues of racism, quoting one doctor who helped euthanize patients as saying he was worried about “the animals” outside–that “these crazy black people who think they’ve been oppressed for all these years by white people” might start “raping…or, you know, dismembering” people.

The Times also ran an article (8/31/09) that talked about how the goal in New Orleans isn’t to “revert to the city that existed here before the flood,” but instead focusing on “revitalization.” (See Extra!, 7-8/07.) Further down it mentioned that “fundamental problems” still exist, like high unemployment, and some neighborhoods that “seem barely touched” since four years ago. Race, though, wasn’t mentioned a single time.

The day before the Katrina anniversary, the Times did manage to run a front-page piece on the abysmal state of flood recovery–in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (8/28/09): “Flooded Iowa City Rebuilding and Feeling Just a Bit Ignored.” As reporter Susan Saulny put it, “The outpouring of attention toward New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, ratcheting up again now as the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, has not been seen here. In fact, the people of Cedar Rapids are feeling neglected.”

As Saulny quickly made clear, her premise itself is flawed: “To be sure, Hurricane Katrina’s huge reach and a botched emergency response devastated a far greater swath of the country than did the flooding in the Midwest, and no one here is trying to make tit-for-tat disaster comparisons. No lives were lost in the flooding in Cedar Rapids, and the government’s initial response to the crisis was generally considered a success.” And yet, the New York Times saw fit to run a front-page piece on Cedar Rapids and not Katrina. That “outpouring of attention” for Katrina victims Saulny described as attending the fourth anniversary certainly wasn’t to be found in the Times.

CNN, whose relatively heavy Katrina coverage helped boost host Anderson Cooper’s profile at the network (Extra!, 7-8/06), dedicated much more time than any other major outlet to the anniversary, with a few dozen segments over the days before and after August 29. But while some of the coverage dug deeper than other outlets, it betrayed CNN’s lack of consistent interest in the issue. In one report, for example, correspondent Gary Tuchman “tracked down” a story on vigilante justice in which a white militia formed in a largely white neighborhood and shot black passersby in the chaotic days following the hurricane. It’s a critical story–so why did CNN only come to it nearly nine months after ProPublica journalist A.C. Thompson (interviewed briefly in CNN’s piece) broke the news in a lengthy investigative report published in the Nation (1/05/09)? It would seem the Katrina anniversaries are the only time such stories are considered newsworthy.

The media’s neglect of the Gulf Coast is not a new thing; Extra! was writing about it as far back as July/August 2006. According to the Tyndall Report, which monitors TV news, there were 367 minutes on Katrina’s aftermath that year (TVNewser, 1/3/07). In 2007 it was down to 116 minutes, while in 2008 it was not among the top 20 stories of the year. In the first seven months of 2009, Tyndall finds, there were just six Katrina-related stories (http://www.TyndallReport.com).

There are plenty of ongoing stories to be told today. The Institute for Southern Studies report also highlighted some startling statistics: In addition to the estimated 1 million people still displaced by Katrina, rents in the New Orleans area have increased by 40 percent since the hurricane, and an estimated 11,000 people are currently homeless there. The report also reveals striking racial disparities in the impacts: Less than 49 percent of households in the largely African-American and working class Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans are actively receiving mail today (compared to 76 percent city-wide), for example, and black children’s enrollment in public and private schools dropped from 49 percent of all students to 43 percent.

Independent journalists and outlets, such as Jordan Flaherty (CounterPunch, 8/26/09) and Democracy Now! (8/31/09), as well as local journalists like the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s Jarvis DeBerry (e.g., 8/21/09), have been documenting such ongoing disparities and unfulfilled promises. It’s work the major outlets can and should be doing–and it doesn’t even have to wait until the next anniversary.

Food shortages in Guatemala threatening hundreds of thousands, warns UN agency

Urgent funding is needed to help combat an acute hunger crisis that is ravaging much of Guatemala, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.

President Obama Delivers Major Address on Healthcare Reform to USCongress

Thursday, September 10, 2009
09:51 Mecca time, 06:51 GMT

Obama pushes healthcare overhaul

Obama hit out at ‘bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost’

The US president has urged congress to agree on sweeping changes to the country’s healthcare system, amid mounting opposition to his own overhaul proposals.

Barack Obama delivered a primetime address to a special joint session of the US congress on Wednesday.

“I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” he said.

The US was the “only advanced democracy on earth … that allows such hardships for millions of its people” because of the state of its healthcare system, Obama said.

He explained that an overhaul was urgently needed in a country where about 30 million people cannot get health insurance.
Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds, reporting from Capitol Hill where Obama made his speech, said the healthcare issue was one of Obama’s sternest tests as president so far, and could be pivotal to his presidency.

Although the Democrats have control of the upper and lower houses of congress, failure to win broad support on changes to the healthcare system could weaken Obama politically and negatively affect other items on his policy agenda, our correspondent said.

The formulation of a healthcare bill suitable to both Democrats and Republicans has so far proved elusive, despite the efforts of a six-member bipartisan panel tasked with drafting a new policy.

‘Breaking point’

Warning that the US deficit would grow, more families and businesses would go bankrupt, and more people would die if congress did nothing, Obama said: “Our collective failure to meet this challenge - year after year, decade after decade - has led us to a breaking point.

“Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.”

Obama’s speech was designed to retake control of the debate after his plans for change came under fire from Republicans and conservative groups.

They allege that Obama’s package amounts to a socialist takeover of the US healthcare system, and that spending $1 trillion on the overhaul is irresponsible at a time when the US is struggling under its highest-ever budget deficit.

Obama hit out at his critics on Wednesday, dismissing “bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost” and saying that many had used the opportunity to “score short-term political points”.

“The time for bickering is over, the time for games has passed,” he said.

Basic goals

The president said his plan would meet three basic goals: provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, provide insurance to those who do not have it, and slow the growth of healthcare costs.

He outlined details of the plan that would offer consumer protections for those already with insurance, an exchange that allows individuals and small businesses to purchase affordable coverage, and a requirement that people who can afford it to be insured so that taxpayers are not saddled with the costs of the uninsured.

Healthcare crisis weighs heavily on Obama

Jim Clyburn, the Democratic majority whip in the House of Representatives, told Al Jazeera that Obama’s speech gave clarity to the five different committees working on healthcare reform proposals.

“What we’ve come away from tonight is a clear idea of what we ought to be doing for people who have insurance and what we need to do for people who do not have insurance and exactly what we need to do to contain costs,” he said.

He also said the president had done “exactly what he needed to do” to calm the fears of legislators on the left of the political spectrum who believe strongly in the need for a so-called public option - a government-run insurance programme.

Promising that the plan would not add “one dime to our deficits either now or in the future”, Obama said there would be a provision that requires the government to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings promised do not materialise.

He said most of the new plan “will be paid for with money already being spent but spent badly in the existing healthcare system”.

And he pointed out that at an estimated cost of $900bn over 10 years, it was “less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration”.

‘Tremendous frustration’

Christopher Hayes, the Washington editor of the progressive magazine, The Nation, agreed that Obama had been “very clear” in laying out the basic structure of the healthcare policy.

But he told Al Jazeera that “there is a tremendous amount of frustration from progressives” over what they see as Obama not being progressive enough and trying to appease conservatives.

“At a certain point it becomes a question of gain theory and what hurts him more politically - appeasing the right and forgetting his base, or listening to his base and forgetting the right,” he said.

“The way the balance of power works in this country is that the left is consistently marginalised and the balance of power tends to be with Wall Street, the health insurance companies and the right-wing, and that’s a power imbalance that is bigger than just Barack Obama, that’s really the root problem.”

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Thursday, September 10, 2009
06:19 Mecca time, 03:19 GMT

Obama pushes healthcare reform plan

Obama hit out at ‘bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost’

The US president has urged congress to agree on sweeping changes to the country’s healthcare system, amid mounting opposition to his own reform proposals.

Barack Obama, whose approval ratings have fallen due to discontent over his plans to overhaul healthcare, delivered a primetime address to a special joint session of the US congress on Wednesday.

“I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” Obama said.

The US was the “only advanced democracy on earth … that allows such hardships for millions of its people” because of the state of its healthcare system, the president said, adding that an overhaul was urgently needed in a country where about 30 million people cannot get health insurance.

Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds, reporting from Capitol Hill where Obama made his speech, said the healthcare issue was one of Obama’s sternest tests as president so far, and could be pivotal to his presidency.

Although the democrats have control of the upper and lower houses of congress, failure to win broad support on changes to the healthcare system could weaken Obama politically and negatively affect other items on his policy agenda, our correspondent said.

The formulation of a healthcare bill suitable to both democrats and republicans has so far proved elusive, despite the efforts of a six-member bipartisan panel tasked with drafting a new policy.

‘Breaking point’

Warning that the US deficit would grow, more families and businesses would go bankrupt, and more people would die if congress did nothing, Obama said: “Our collective failure to meet this challenge – year after year, decade after decade – has led us to a breaking point.

“Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.”
Obama’s speech was designed to re-take control of the debate after his plans for change came under fire by republicans and conservative groups.

They allege that Obama’s package amounts to a socialist takeover of the US healthcare system, and that spending $1 trillion on the overhaul is irresponsible at a time when the US is struggling under its highest-ever budget deficit.

Obama hit out at his critics on Wednesday, dismissing “bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost” and saying that many had used the opportunity to “score short-term political points”.

“The time for bickering is over, the time for games has passed,” he said.

The president said his plan would meet three basic goals: provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, provide insurance to those who do not have it, and slow the growth of healthcare costs.

He outlined details of the plan that would offer consumer protections for those already with insurance, an exchange that allows individuals and small businesses to purchase affordable coverage, and a requirement that people who can afford it to be insured so that taxpayers are not saddled with the costs of the uninsured.

Paying for it

Promising that his plan would not add “one dime to our deficits either now or in the future”, he said there would be a provision that requires the government to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings promised do not materialise.

He said most of the new plan “will be paid for with money already being spent but spent badly in the existing healthcare system”.

Healthcare crisis weighs heavily on Obama

And he pointed out that at an estimated cost of $900bn over 10 years, it was “less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration”.

Jim Clyburn, the democratic majority whip in the House of Representatives, told Al Jazeera that Obama’s speech gave clarity to the five different committees working on healthcare reform proposals.

“What we’ve come away from tonight is a clear idea of what we ought to be doing for people who have insurance and what we need to do for people who do not have insurance and exactly what we need to do to contain costs,” he said.

He also said the president had done “exactly what he needed to do” to calm the fears of legislators on the left of the political spectrum who believe strongly in the need for a so-called public option – a government-run insurance programme.

Christopher Hayes, the Washington editor of the progressive magazine, The Nation, agreed that Obama had been “very clear” in laying out the basic structure of the healthcare policy.

But he told Al Jazeera that “there is a tremendous amount of frustration from progressives” over what they see as Obama not being progressive enough and trying to appease conservatives.

“At a certain point it becomes a question of gain theory and what hurts him more politically - appeasing the right and forgetting his base, or listening to his base and forgetting the right,” he said.

“The way the balance of power works in this country is that the left is consistently marginalised and the balance of power tends to be with Wall Street, the health insurance companies and the right-wing, and that’s a power imbalance that is bigger than just Barack Obama, that’s really the root problem.”

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Thursday, September 10, 2009
06:04 Mecca time, 03:04 GMT

Full text: Obama’s healthcare plan

Barack Obama has promised an all-inclusive health care scheme

Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, members of Congress, and the American people:

When I spoke here last winter, this nation was facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. Credit was frozen. And our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

As any American who is still looking for work or a way to pay their bills will tell you, we are by no means out of the woods. A full and vibrant recovery is many months away.

And I will not let up until those Americans who seek jobs can find them; until those businesses that seek capital and credit can thrive; until all responsible homeowners can stay in their homes.

That is our ultimate goal. But thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink.

I want to thank the members of this body for your efforts and your support in these last several months, and especially those who have taken the difficult votes that have put us on a path to recovery. I also want to thank the American people for their patience and resolve during this trying time for our nation.

But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future, and that is the issue of health care.

I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.

Reform

It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every president and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way.

A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.

Our collective failure to meet this challenge year after year, decade after decade has led us to a breaking point. Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.

These are not primarily people on welfare. These are middle-class Americans. Some can’t get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer.

Many other Americans who are willing and able to pay are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or expensive to cover.

We are the only advanced democracy on Earth, the only wealthy nation, that allows such hardships for millions of its people. There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.

Concerns

In just a two year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone.

But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem of the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today.

More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you’ll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won’t pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.

One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn’t reported gallstones that he didn’t even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it.

Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company cancelled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more than doubled in size.

That is heartbreaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America.

Rising costs

Then there’s the problem of rising costs. We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages.

It’s why so many employers, especially small businesses, are forcing their employees to pay more for insurance, or are dropping their coverage entirely. It’s why so many aspiring entrepreneurs cannot afford to open a business in the first place, and why American businesses that compete internationally, like our automakers, are at a huge disadvantage.

And it’s why those of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it, about $1000 per year that pays for somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care.

Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined.

Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close. These are the facts. Nobody disputes them. We know we must reform this system. The question is how.

Pros and cons

There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada’s, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone.

On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.

I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have.

Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch. And that is precisely what those of you in Congress have tried to do over the past several months.

During that time, we have seen Washington at its best and its worst. We have seen many in this chamber work tirelessly for the better part of this year to offer thoughtful ideas about how to achieve reform.

Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week. That has never happened before.

Our overall efforts have been supported by an unprecedented coalition of doctors and nurses; hospitals, seniors’ groups and even drug companies, many of whom opposed reform in the past.

And there is agreement in this chamber on about 80 per cent of what needs to be done, putting us closer to the goal of reform than we have ever been.

Scare tactics

But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics.

Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge.

And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned.

Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.

The plan I’m announcing tonight would meet three basic goals: It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t.

And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government. It’s a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge, not just government and insurance companies, but employers and individuals.

And it’s a plan that incorporates ideas from Senators and Congressmen; from Democrats and Republicans, and yes, from some of my opponents in both the primary and general election.

Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan: First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.

Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

Regulations

What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime.

We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick.

And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies, because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse.

That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives. That’s what Americans who have health insurance can expect from this plan, more security and stability.

Now, if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who don’t currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage.

If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange, a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices.

Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage.

This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It’s how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it’s time to give every American the same opportunity that we’ve given ourselves.

Exemptions

For those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need.

And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned. This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right.

In the meantime, for those Americans who can’t get insurance today because they have pre-existing medical conditions, we will immediately offer low-cost coverage that will protect you against financial ruin if you become seriously ill.

This was a good idea when Senator John McCain proposed it in the campaign, it’s a good idea now, and we should embrace it.

Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those, particularly the young and healthy, who still want to take the risk and go without coverage.

There may still be companies that refuse to do right by their workers. The problem is, such irresponsible behavior costs all the rest of us money. If there are affordable options and people still don’t sign up for health insurance, it means we pay for those people’s expensive emergency room visits.

If some businesses don’t provide workers health care, it forces the rest of us to pick up the tab when their workers get sick, and gives those businesses an unfair advantage over their competitors.

And unless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek, especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, just can’t be achieved.

That’s why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance, just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers.

There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who still cannot afford coverage, and 95 per cent of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements.

But we cannot have large businesses and individuals who can afford coverage game the system by avoiding responsibility to themselves or their employees. Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part.

While there remain some significant details to be ironed out, I believe a broad consensus exists for the aspects of the plan I just outlined: consumer protections for those with insurance, an exchange that allows individuals and small businesses to purchase affordable coverage, and a requirement that people who can afford insurance get insurance.

And I have no doubt that these reforms would greatly benefit Americans from all walks of life, as well as the economy as a whole.

Criticisms

Still, given all the misinformation that’s been spread over the past few months, I realize that many Americans have grown nervous about reform.

So tonight I’d like to address some of the key controversies that are still out there. Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost.

The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens.

Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false, the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up, under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.

My health care proposal has also been attacked by some who oppose reform as a “government takeover” of the entire health care system.

As proof, critics point to a provision in our plan that allows the uninsured and small businesses to choose a publicly sponsored insurance option, administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare.

So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition.

Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 per cent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 per cent is controlled by just one company.

Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly, by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates.

Insurance executives don’t do this because they are bad people. They do it because it’s profitable. As one former insurance executive testified before Congress, insurance companies are not only encouraged to find reasons to drop the seriously ill; they are rewarded for it.

All of this is in service of meeting what this former executive called “Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations”.

Now, I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business. They provide a legitimate service, and employ a lot of our friends and neighbors. I just want to hold them accountable. The insurance reforms that I’ve already mentioned would do just that.

Public option

But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange.

Let me be clear, it would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance.

In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5 per cent of Americans would sign up.

Despite all this, the insurance companies and their allies don’t like this idea. They argue that these private companies can’t fairly compete with the government. And they’d be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won’t be.

I have insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects. But by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits, excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers.

It would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities.

It’s worth noting that a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option of the sort I’ve proposed tonight. But its impact shouldn’t be exaggerated, by the left, the right, or the media. It is only one part of my plan, and should not be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles.

To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end, and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.

Working together

And to my Republican friends, I say that rather than making wild claims about a government takeover of health care, we should work together to address any legitimate concerns you may have.

For example, some have suggested that that the public option go into effect only in those markets where insurance companies are not providing affordable policies. Others propose a co-op or another non-profit entity to administer the plan. These are all constructive ideas worth exploring.

But I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can’t find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice. And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need.

Finally, let me discuss an issue that is a great concern to me, to members of this chamber, and to the public, and that is how we pay for this plan.

Here’s what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future. Period.

And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize.

Part of the reason I faced a trillion dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for, from the Iraq War to tax breaks for the wealthy.

I will not make that same mistake with healthcare.

Savings

Second, we’ve estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system, a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. Right now, too much of the hard-earned savings and tax dollars we spend on health care doesn’t make us healthier.

That’s not my judgment, it’s the judgment of medical professionals across this country. And this is also true when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid.

In fact, I want to speak directly to America’s seniors for a moment, because Medicare is another issue that’s been subjected to demagoguery and distortion during the course of this debate.

More than four decades ago, this nation stood up for the principle that after a lifetime of hard work, our seniors should not be left to struggle with a pile of medical bills in their later years.

That is how Medicare was born. And it remains a sacred trust that must be passed down from one generation to the next. That is why not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan.

The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies, subsidies that do everything to pad their profits and nothing to improve your care.

Oversight

And we will also create an independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead.

These steps will ensure that you, America’s seniors, get the benefits you’ve been promised. They will ensure that Medicare is there for future generations. And we can use some of the savings to fill the gap in coverage that forces too many seniors to pay thousands of dollars a year out of their own pocket for prescription drugs.

That’s what this plan will do for you. So don’t pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut, especially since some of the same folks who are spreading these tall tales have fought against Medicare in the past, and just this year supported a budget that would have essentially turned Medicare into a privatized voucher program.

That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.

Now, because Medicare is such a big part of the health care system, making the program more efficient can help usher in changes in the way we deliver health care that can reduce costs for everybody.

We have long known that some places, like the Intermountain Healthcare in Utah or the Geisinger Health System in rural Pennsylvania, offer high-quality care at costs below average.

The commission can help encourage the adoption of these common sense best practices by doctors and medical professionals throughout the system, everything from reducing hospital infection rates to encouraging better coordination between teams of doctors.

Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan. Much of the rest would be paid for with revenues from the very same drug and insurance companies that stand to benefit from tens of millions of new customers.

This reform will charge insurance companies a fee for their most expensive policies, which will encourage them to provide greater value for the money, an idea which has the support of Democratic and Republican experts.

And according to these same experts, this modest change could help hold down the cost of health care for all of us in the long-run.

Malpractice

Finally, many in this chamber, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle, have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. I don’t believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs.

So I am proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these issues. It’s a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today.

Add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years, less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.

Most of these costs will be paid for with money already being spent, but spent badly, in the existing health care system. The plan will not add to our deficit. The middle-class will realize greater security, not higher taxes. And if we are able to slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of one percent each year, it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term.

This is the plan I’m proposing. It’s a plan that incorporates ideas from many of the people in this room tonight _ Democrats and Republicans. And I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open.

But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are.

If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.

Deficit

Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true.

That is why we cannot fail. Because there are too many Americans counting on us to succeed, the ones who suffer silently, and the ones who shared their stories with us at town hall meetings, in e-mails, and in letters.

I received one of those letters a few days ago. It was from our beloved friend and colleague, Ted Kennedy. He had written it back in May, shortly after he was told that his illness was terminal. He asked that it be delivered upon his death.

In it, he spoke about what a happy time his last months were, thanks to the love and support of family and friends, his wife, Vicki, and his children, who are here tonight. And he expressed confidence that this would be the year that health care reform, “that great unfinished business of our society”, he called it, would finally pass.

He repeated the truth that health care is decisive for our future prosperity, but he also reminded me that “it concerns more than material things”. “What we face”, he wrote, “is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country”.

I’ve thought about that phrase quite a bit in recent days, the character of our country. One of the unique and wonderful things about America has always been our self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government. And figuring out the appropriate size and role of government has always been a source of rigorous and sometimes angry debate.

For some of Ted Kennedy’s critics, his brand of liberalism represented an affront to American liberty. In their mind, his passion for universal health care was nothing more than a passion for big government.

But those of us who knew Teddy and worked with him here, people of both parties, know that what drove him was something more. His friend, Orrin Hatch, knows that. They worked together to provide children with health insurance.

His friend John McCain knows that. They worked together on a Patient’s Bill of Rights. His friend Chuck Grassley knows that. They worked together to provide health care to children with disabilities.

On issues like these, Ted Kennedy’s passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience. It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer. He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick; and he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance; what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent, there is something that could make you better, but I just can’t afford it.

Non-partisanship

That large heartedness, that concern and regard for the plight of others, is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling.

It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people’s shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.

This has always been the history of our progress. In 1933, when over half of our seniors could not support themselves and millions had seen their savings wiped away, there were those who argued that Social Security would lead to socialism. But the men and women of Congress stood fast, and we are all the better for it.

In 1965, when some argued that Medicare represented a government takeover of health care, members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, did not back down. They joined together so that all of us could enter our golden years with some basic peace of mind.

You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom.

But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, and the vulnerable can be exploited.

And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom; and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter, that at that point we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges.

We lose something essential about ourselves. What was true then remains true today. I understand how difficult this health care debate has been. I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them.

I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road, to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term. But that’s not what the moment calls for. That’s not what we came here to do. We did not come to fear the future.

We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it’s hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history’s test. Because that is who we are. That is our calling. That is our character.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

An Open Letter to Mokgadi Semenya From Nomboniso Gasa

An open letter to Caster Semenya

Published Sep 9, 2009 4:48 PM

Mokgadi Caster Semenya is a South African runner who won the women’s 800-meter gold medal at the 2009 World Championships. She was subsequently challenged by competitors to prove her gender and subjected to sex tests by the International Association of Athletics Federations. Below is a commentary by South African gender and political analyst Nomboniso Gasa that first appeared in the Cape Times Daily Star News, Aug. 27. Gasa edited “Women in South African History” (2007).

First, congratulations on your success; it is no mean achievement. This is your finest hour. And this must not be lost. Like so many others who have been following the developments, I have been at a loss for words, have felt rage and above all an incredible sadness at what you have been forced to experience.

Looking at your photograph in the front page of The Saturday Star, with the South African flag draped over your shoulders, I was drawn to your grace, dignity and composure with which you seemed to handle yourself in these times. I looked closely, at the smile playing at the corners of your mouth and it seemed to me, on some level you were wondering—what is the fuss all about? You won. You worked hard. You deserve the accolades, recognition that honor and affirm your discipline and hard work. For many of us, as a young Black woman, there is much we are learning from you, even though you have said a few words and generally been silent.

In that silence, my sister, if I can call you that, there lies a deeper message of self-knowledge, pushing oneself hard to realize one’s dreams. It is a discipline and approach that many of us continue to aspire to. It is a discipline that remains elusive to many of us. How you have achieved it at so young an age is testimony not only to your personal strength but the loving support of your grandmother, parents and the community that has celebrated and affirmed you. Children growing up in such an environment start at an advantage, despite material disadvantage which [has] … been so widely written about in your particular experience.

I have also been disturbed by the manner in which even those who defend you have taken it upon themselves to define what your struggle is and how best it must be articulated. Whilst this may come from good intentions, this too is a form of disrespect and a patronizing attitude that is not only disempowering but is in fact undermining.

Looking at the unfolding events and the voices of protest against your treatment, I have felt a rather ambiguous pride that South Africans, in particular, have refused to let this go and took up the battle. I am proud that in our country we have people who are ready to say, `This treatment is not fair. This is humiliating and we shall share the pain and battle together with the person who is the primary target.’ I said I have ambiguous pride; why is that?

As I listen to the voices of protest I miss your own voice amidst the noise. I find myself wondering, shouldn’t the starting point be to ask you, Ms. Semenya, how best can we support you in this struggle? How have you coped with these battles before? It seems from that experience of handling these situations we can perhaps learn the strategies and coping mechanisms you have deployed. Not only will we be enriched by your experiences and empowered by your own power. In our own minds we will move from the tendency to see you as a victim and see you as the tenacious warrior you are.

I have also wondered at the dominance of race over gender in the public discourse and wondered whether this is how you would self-represent. It seems to me that in this case as it often is race and gender are inextricably linked. To emphasize one over the other is in itself another form of erasure and imposition of what identity is most important to you.

The tendency to conflate racism and sexism in your case also plays itself out in the dialogue that often refuses to see Black women as having specific struggles which sometimes may be common and at times different from those of Black men. To reduce your experience to a racist incident only, is to silence and erase the historical experience of international competitive sports as generally sexist.

We know from history that often, women from Russia and other European countries have been probed on so-called gender grounds. It would seem there belies an assumption based not only on physicality but also on what women can or cannot achieve. Your finishing speed attests to this. One wonders whether had you not achieved such a fine finish, whether the noise would have been at so high a volume about your gender as it has been.

Sadly, some of the people who have had to shield you from this intrusive exposure have also shown a lack of understanding of the complexity of gender. At some level, saying `ask her roommates, they have seen her naked’ is an admission that there is a way to prove one’s gender in clear-cut terms. We know, and many scientists will agree, that there are so many grey areas that even the tests themselves can never fully prove this question. So, let’s say one has XX chromosomes, does that make one undoubtedly female? What if in fact the test shows XY chromosomes and yet is female in every other respect? What will have been proven?

Gender and sex are often confused and used interchangeably in ways that are insidious, as we have seen in your case. As in so many other areas of life, one’s right for self-identification is in fact the most central aspect of being a free person. The tendency to impose an identity from outside is a result of a patriarchal construction of what gender is. In your case, despite all evidence that your womanness is beyond doubt for yourself, other signifiers are introduced. How fast can a woman run? How strong can she be?

“Some of the papers—even those voices who are supposedly supporting you—have found labeling [has] been hard to resist. And it is labeling that is done with such carelessness and lack of regard for individual choice and the inalienable right to self-identify. Why use the word androgynous to defend someone who self-identifies as a woman? Androgynous as we know, means somebody who is in fact genderless, to choose a less problematic definition. This is in itself a category of identification deeply embedded in a specific social construction of gender not as neutral as the word may suggest. In your case, you are a woman and self-identify as such, this being an identity with which you were not only born but have also continued to use in the face of humiliating experiences. That should be the end of it.

I have also looked at the women in your family. I have been struck by the resemblance with your grandmother and to some extent your mother. I wonder whether they too at some stage have [had] some of these undermining questions and gazes directed towards their physical appearance. For those of us who try to think this through, why have we not taken such resemblance as an indication that like in many families, your looks are part of your family traits and heritage—something to be proud of? Why have we needed more explanation than that? Why an explanation at all? Perhaps the answer lies in a much more powerful understanding of what gender actually means.

As I watched you sitting in the press conference after you landed back home, it occurred to [me] that your victory comes a few months after our national election. During the last electoral campaign, we saw the public discourse on gender and physicality descend to levels that we have not seen before. I recall a politician’s jibe about Helen Zille’s looks. When is it acceptable to make rude insulting comments about a person’s appearance, even if one disagrees with their ideology?

Perhaps, another major contribution you have made, Ms. Semenya, is one that requires a serious leap of imagination—to simply understand that human beings, men and women come in different shades, shapes and sizes. Perhaps the most discomforting aspect of this whole drama is not only that you have taken it within your stride and incredible dignity, but your resilience and refusal to explain yourself.

When one gives narratives of a childhood filled with girl-child chores and being comfortable with playing with boys, in the eye of a storm about one’s gender, there is something incredibly defiant and subversive there. In not explaining or justifying yourself, you have asked for no sympathy or understanding. And why should you? There is none to be asked for or given. All we have to give is that which we all require for ourselves—respect for the dignity of another human.

That, Ms. Semenya, is more powerful than the medal you have brought home. That level of self-knowledge is elusive to many athletes, artists, scholars, politicians and many others who have accomplished much more and who are decades older than you. Not because of how you look but because in the way in which you live your own life we see a celebration of humanity. What remains to be said is to thank you for the lesson of your life. What remains is for us as a country and as a people to affirm and celebrate your achievement and say yes, she is a runner who has made history. No one can take that away from you.

Go then, daughter of the soil, go ahead and achieve much more. Go, knowing that you are in the footsteps of your forebears who rose against their most humble origins and defied all odds.

And if you do not mind, please pass my heartfelt greetings and salutations to the men and women of your family. Thank them, for many of us who need role models every day in our lives, despite the strides we may think we have made.

With great admiration,
Nomboniso Gasa
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Dangerous radioactive sources removed from Lebanon by UN nuclear watchdog

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has safely removed powerful radioactive sources out of Lebanon, including Cobalt-60, a single source of which is enough to kill a person within minutes if directly exposed.

Sticking to the point

Just returned from Ireland where we hosted an extremely fruitful debate on the Lisbon Treaty with an excellent panel of speakers from across the EU. Many of the debates on Lisbon are being hijacked by irrelevant issues, such as Ireland’s membership of the EU, which is not up for debate.

So it was very refreshing to have a solid two hours dedicated to the detail of the Treaty and the ways in which it has been ratified in other countries around Europe.

Click here to read extracts - well worth a read if you would like to hear some new arguments from some new faces, such as Dr Jochen Bittner, Europe correspondent at German newspaper Die Zeit; Gisela Stuart, British Labour MP and member of the Convention on the Future of Europe which drew up the Treaty; Erik Lakomaa, a political strategist from Sweden; and Roland Vaubel, Professor in Economics at Mannheim University. And more.

In stark contrast, it struck us while over in Dublin that unfortunately, some of the more desperate ‘yes’ campaigners have now degenerated into anti-foreigner rants, short of detailed arguments for the Treaty itself.

First it was Professor Brigid Laffan, Chairwoman of ‘Ireland for Europe’, shouting about “the British” on Vincent Browne’s TV3 debate on Tuesday. On the programme, Open Europe’s Lorraine Mullally was asked why she believes the Treaty should be rejected, and responded saying it was a matter of trust and democracy. Trust, because the Irish government had repeatedly promised not to make Irish people vote again, and yet is doing so regardless. Democracy, because the Treaty abolishes the national veto in 60 areas of policy, and because Ireland stands to lose more than 40% of its power to block legislation it disagrees with. Under Lisbon, more decisions than ever before will be taken at European level as opposed to the national level, which means that citizens will have less say and less control.

Instead of replying to that point, and making a sensible counter-argument, Professor Laffan launched a desperate attack on Open Europe, including the bizarre argument that our input should be ignored because there are no women on our Advisory Council. Actually there are two, but hey ho.

Worse, we returned to the office today to see an email accusing us of being “paddy-hating”.

Accusations of racism are a very low blow. Normally we’d dismiss this kind of thing but we were surprised to discover this pretty shocking email came from John O’Brennan, a lecturer, no less, in European Politics and Society in the Sociology department at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth, and director of the Center for the Study of Wider Europe. Surely he should know better? His message is not the kind of thing you would normally expect from an academic.

As a scholar concerned about the future of Europe, he should surely be welcoming debate about the future of the EU from people around Europe. In any case, as has been well documented, Lorraine herself is “paddy”, so it would be a pretty weird case of self-hatred if true.

All that petty nonsense aside, isn’t there an inherent contradiction in the arguments of those who are championing EU integration, and calling for more through the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, and who are also so quick to dismiss the arguments of people from other EU countries? (Very ironic, too, that they - John O’Brennan - should do that while simultaneously accusing others of being racist).

These people are claiming the moral highground but their offensive and wild accusations are testament to an increasingly desperate campaign lacking in real arguments for the Treaty itself. Very sad.

‘Sustainable’ palm oil campaign banned by ASA

Advertorial claimed that controversial oil business was ‘green answer’ and was important to alleviating poverty

Mark Sweney
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 September 2009 07.06 BST
A press campaign making environmental claims about the controversial product Malaysian Palm Oil, including that it is “sustainable”, has been banned as misleading by the advertising regulator.
Palm Oil, which is used in a third of all groceries, has been at the centre of an environmental debate over its role in the destruction of rainforest in areas such as south-east Asia.
The press campaign, run by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), made a number of claims, including that the product was the “green answer” and that palm oil is the “only product able to sustainably and efficiently meet a larger portion of the world’s increasing demand for oil crop-based consumer goods, foodstuffs and biofuels“.
MPOC also argued that the palm oil business had played an important role in the “alleviation of poverty, especially among rural populations”.
The advertorial went on to claim that criticism of Malaysia’s palm oil industry – including “rampant deforestation and unsound environmental practices” – amounted to “protectionist agendas” not based on scientific fact or evidence.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth, and two members of the public, complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that a number of the claims made by MPOC were misleading and could not be proven.
The ASA said that a palm oil company sustainability certification scheme, through a body called the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and the certification of biofuels in general, was “still the subject of debate”. Therefore making a claim that palm oil could be wholly sustainable, which cannot be substantiated, was deemed to be misleading.
The ASA also said that MPOC’s attack on its detractors was likely to mislead. This was because MPOC could not prove that the production of palm oil did not, in fact, lead to deforestation or environmental damage.
MPOC’s assertion about helping to alleviate poverty was also misleading according to the ASA, as there was “not a consensus on the economic impact of palm oil on local communities”. The ASA said that some research had shown that biofuel production causes adverse social impacts including rising food prices and has a major short-term impact on the poor.
The ASA ruled that the ad should not be shown again.
Last year the ASA banned a TV ad by the MPOC on similar grounds.