East Africa drought leaves millions hungry

Drought for a fifth year running is driving more than 23 million east Africans in seven countries toward severe hunger and destitution, international aid agency Oxfam said on Tuesday.

Launching a 9.5 million pound appeal, it said the situation was being worsened by high food prices and conflict. The most badly hit nations are Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda.

Malnutrition is now above emergency levels in some areas and hundreds of thousands of valuable cattle are dying.

“This is the worst humanitarian crisis Oxfam has seen in east Africa for over ten years,” Paul Smith Lomas, Oxfam’s East Africa Director, said in a statement.

He said failed and unpredictable rains were ever more common in the region, and that broader climate change meant wet seasons were becoming shorter. Droughts have increased from once a decade to every two or three years.

“In Wajir, northern Kenya, almost 200 dead animals were recently found around one dried-up water source,” Lomas said.

“People are surviving on two liters of water a day in some places — less water than a toilet flush. The conditions have never been so harsh or so inhospitable, and people desperately need our help to survive.”

Some 3.8 million Kenyans, a tenth of the population, need emergency aid, Oxfam said, partly because food prices have risen to 180 percent above average.

One in six children are acutely malnourished in Somalia, the charity said, while conflict meant people were less able to grow food and drought is ravaging areas where people have fled. Half the population — more than 3.8 million people — are affected.

In Ethiopia, 13.7 million people are at risk of severe hunger and need help, Oxfam said. Many are selling cattle to buy food. Farmers in northern Uganda have lost half their crops.

Other countries hard hit are Sudan, Djibouti and Tanzania.

Rains are due next month, but are likely to bring scant relief or even deluges that could dramatically worsen matters.

Oxfam said there were fears that east Africa could be hit by floods that would destroy crops and homes, as well as increasing the spread of water-borne diseases.

“The aid response to the crisis needs to rapidly expand, but it is desperately short of funds,” the charity said, adding that the U.N.’s World Food Program was facing a $977 million donor shortfall for its Horn of Africa work over the next six months.

“Even with normal rain, the harvest will not arrive until early 2010. People will still need aid to get them through a long hunger season,” it said.

Source:
Reuters, “East Africa drought leaves millions hungry“, accessed September 30, 2009
Cable Network News, “U.N. seeks $230M to fight Kenya hunger“, accessed September 30, 2009

Guinea Protests ‘Will Continue’ Says Opposition Party

Guinea protests ‘will continue’

A leading Guinean opposition leader has said protests will continue in the country to get rid of what he called the “criminal” military regime.

Alpha Conde, head of the Rally of the People of Guinea party, said he would return there to “mobilise the people”.

Rights groups say at least 157 people were shot dead by troops on Monday and that woman have been publically raped.

But the interior ministry said 57 people died in the protests. Officials denied knowledge of sexual assaults.

“We can’t fight and then draw back, we fought for change so we can’t retreat now,” Mr Conde, speaking from New York, told the BBC.

“We want free and democratic elections, but considering what happened yesterday, we now want the government to go and for it to be replaced by a national government that can organise elections.”

Mr Conde said the government had been “discredited” by the violence, which he said had been “planned and were directed by the president’s own advisor”.

“ Frankly it saddens me immensely. Frankly, it is very regrettable ”
Capt Camara

Guinean soldiers used tear gas, baton charges and fired live ammunition on Monday to break up demonstrations in the capital, Conakry.

About 50,000 people were protesting over rumours that Junta head Capt Moussa Dadis Camara intends to run for president in an election scheduled for next January.

The Guinean Organisation for Defence of Human Rights put the toll at 157 people killed and more than 1,200 wounded.

Guinea’s interior ministry told the BBC that a total of 57 people died during the violence.

Bodies ‘hidden’

Human rights groups say they have had reports of soldiers bayoneting people and women being stripped and raped in the streets during the protest.

“The military is going into districts, looting goods and raping women,” Mamadi Kaba, the head of the Guinean branch of the African Encounter for the Defence of Human Rights (RADDHO), told AFP.

“We have similar reports from several sources, including police sources and some close to the military,” said Mr Kaba, from his office in Dakar, Senegal.

The interior ministry source admitted that some soldiers had fired live rounds into the crowd, but said that only four people had died from gunshot wounds. The others, the ministry said, were trampled to death.

The opposition has accused the army of taking away some bodies to hide the scale of the violence.

Capt Camara denied knowledge of sexual assaults, but admitted that some of his security forces had lost control.

He said he was waiting to hear exactly how many people had died.

“Frankly, it saddens me immensely. Frankly, it is very regrettable,” he told French radio.

Capt Camara said he had not yet decided whether to run for the presidency and was unsure what the correct move would be.

There has been worldwide condemnation of the violence.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Guinean authorities to exercise maximum restraint, while the West African regional body Ecowas is reported to be pursuing sanctions against the military regime.

The African Union has expressed grave concern over the latest violence, condemning the “indiscriminate firing on unarmed civilians”.

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Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8281772.stm
Published: 2009/09/29 22:15:56 GMT

From the Inbox - Don’t Let Them Kill the 3 Legged Wolves

Save the Three-Legged Wolves The Middle Fork pack’s alpha female (pictured above as a pup with her litter) and male have each lost legs to human traps. Yet they survive to raise wolf pups — the future of the most endangered wolves in the world. According to the most recent official count, there are just 52 lobos left in the wild. The wolves of the New Mexico’s Middle Fork pack are some of the most endangered animals on the planet. The mother and father of the pack have both lost a leg to painful human-made traps — leaving each with just three legs. A punishing drought in the Middle Fork pack’s home range makes the search for food to feed their four pups more and more challenging. And anti-wolf forces are working to once again eradicate their entire species in the wild. Please donate today to help Defenders protect these most endangered animals. The Middle Fork wolves really are extremely important. As one of just two breeding pairs in New Mexico for the nearly extinct Mexican gray wolf (the lobo), the Middle Fork pack’s alpha male (AM871) and female (AF861) are critical to the future of the wolf in the Southwest. Will you help us protect the Middle Fork wolves? Your tax-deductible donation today will help us… Demand that the federal government not cave into the pressure of local wolf-haters to kill these wolves. Use proven on-the-ground techniques to keep these wolves away from livestock and away from the guns of those who would shoot them. Post rewards to bring poachers who kill endangered lobos to justice. Twice this summer, state agencies have threatened to remove the Middle Fork wolves from the wild — a move would see these wolves either killed or consigned to captivity for the rest of their lives and would wreck efforts to rescue lobos from a second extinction in the wild. So far, Defenders of Wildlife and our allies have been able to convince officials to keep the Middle Fork wolves where they belong — in the wild. But ensuring the safety of these wolves — and saving lobos as a species from extinction in the wild — is a daily fight that we need your help to win. Please donate whatever you can afford today to help save these amazing animals. The Middle Fork wolves are some of the most important wolves in the country, but we need your help to save them. Please donate today to help us save this pack and the species whose survival in the wild may well depend on their fate. For the Wild Ones, Rodger Schlickeisen President Defenders of Wildlife P.S. It’s truly an amazing story that two three-legged endangered wolves are surviving in the wild. Together we can prevent humans from taking their lives. Please make a secure donation online today or call 1-800-385-9712 to help us reach these important goals.

Angola Secures IMF Loan Agreement

Angola secures IMF loan agreement

Angola has reached a preliminary deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for loans of up to $890m (£558m).

IMF mission chief Lamin Leigh said the loans would help alleviate the nation’s immediate cash flow pressures.

Angola, the world’s 19th largest oil producer, has been hit hard by falling crude prices over the past year and the wider global economic slowdown.

Oil is currently trading at $67 a barrel, less than half its $147 all-time high of July 2008.

‘Important victory’

Angola’s Economy Minister Manuel Nunes Junior said the deal with the IMF would bolster the country’s credibility.

Mr Leigh said the loans should be approved by the IMF board in November and that Angola was on track to pass an “appropriately tight 2010 budget, backed by firm policies on monetary management”.

The preliminary deal marks a big improvement in Angola’s relationship with the IMF.

Angola broke off talks with the IMF in 2007 and instead turned to China for billions of dollars in oil-backed loans.

“This is a very important moment for the government of Angola and we are on the way to securing one more important victory for the country and for the Angolan people,” Mr Nunes Junior added.

Angola expects its economy to grow 6.2% this year, although analysts have predicted it could be as low as 0.4%.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/8281639.stm
Published: 2009/09/29 20:23:37 GMT

Finally, a bid to save our soil

Hilary Benn’s recognition that we need to look after our soil is long overdue – a fixation with chemistry threatens our civilisation
Graham Harvey
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 29 September 2009 10.30 BST
It’s good to know the government has realised we need to take rather better care of our soil if we’re to stand a chance of surviving on this planet.
Announcing a new soil protection strategy, the rural affairs secretary, Hilary Benn, declared: “Good quality soils are essential for a thriving farming industry, a sustainable food supply and a healthy environment.”
Quite so, Mr Benn. But what took you so long? For an old farming hack like me it has been obvious for years that the way we’ve been treating our soils is bad for our health as well as for our environment.
In a nutshell, the constant pounding we’ve given our farmland, both with chemicals and with giant machines, has seriously compromised its ability to go on feeding us. If we go on treating it in such a cavalier way our civilisation is likely to go the way of all the others who wrecked their soils – starting with Mesopotamia.
The roots of our own particular form of soil abuse lie in the ideas of an influential 19th century chemist called Justus von Liebig. He propounded the theory that soil fertility was principally a matter of chemistry. You simply totted up the amounts of plant nutrients taken off in a crop and replaced them in the form of fertiliser.
In this way the land could be induced to go on producing crops indefinitely, Von Liebig reasoned. It’s this 19th century paradigm that has underpinned our food system ever since. Around the world farmers have thrown a few major chemical elements onto their fields – principally nitrogen, phosphate and potash. And that’s about it.
The idea that you might also need to apply some organic fertiliser such as animal manure has disappeared on many lowland farms.
Judged solely on the basis of crop yields the system would appear to have worked reasonably well. But serious drawbacks have begun to appear with real implications for human health. Many everyday foods are now depleted in health-protecting nutrients. And the soil itself – the only guarantor that we can go on feeding ourselves in the future – is losing its structure and eroding away.
Prof Bob Watson, chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), sounded the alarm bells last year when he reported on a World Bank-funded investigation into global farming technology. He said: “We are putting food that appears cheap on our tables; but it is food that is not always healthy and that costs us dearly in terms of water, soil and the biological diversity on which all our futures depend.”
The fatal flaw in our food system is that it is fixated on chemistry while taking little account of the life forms in soil which are the true builders of fertility. Von Liebig became known as the founder of agricultural chemistry. Unfortunately there was no one around to make the case for agricultural biology, which, if anything, was more important.
Commerce has been happy to perpetuate this myopic view of soil fertility. A handful of large corporations have made handsome returns from peddling chemical fertilisers to farmers. Why would they be worried about soils becoming damaged and breaking down?
One of the consequences of soil damage is that crops are unable to take up the nutrients they need. As a result they become unhealthy and vulnerable to attack by pests and diseases. This hands another revenue stream to the chemical companies, who are then able to cash in with the sale of pesticides.
It appears from Benn’s pronouncement that the proverbial penny has finally dropped. Farmers are being encouraged to abandon damaging techniques such as ploughing and substitute techniques like “minimal tillage”, a less brutal and invasive way of preparing soil to receive a new crop.
The aim of the strategy is to increase the level of soil “organic matter”, an all-encompassing term for life below ground. It includes living organisms from microbes to earthworms, by way of nematodes and fungi. It also includes the dead and decaying remnants of animals and plants. It’s these myriad life forms, together with the materials they work on, that supply nutrients for crop plants, for grazing animals and ultimately for us human beings.
Thankfully the government has recognised that soil fertility is not simply – or even principally – a matter of chemistry. The challenge for farmers is to create the conditions that allow life below ground to flourish. When soils are genuinely healthy and fertile, the future of our food supply – and its quality – is assured. So is the future of the planet.
Fertile soils represent a far greater store of carbon than damaged ones. Even as farmers begin to rebuild levels of organic matter in their soils, they’ll be removing carbon dioxide from the air and locking it up safely below ground.
Soil represents the largest terrestrial carbon sink. It contains three times more than all the world’s vegetation. That’s why Benn’s new protection strategy is good news for all of us. Unless, of course, you happen to have shares in the farm chemical industry.

Brussels targets carbon trading fraud ahead of Copenhagen summit

The EU is desperate to get its house in order ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit in December
Ashley Seager
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 29 September 2009 21.08 BST
The European commission announced an overhaul of the EU’s VAT system today in its latest attempt to prevent its much-vaunted carbon trading system being riddled by multimillion-pound fraud.
Criminals who for years had been ripping off VAT from finance ministries around the EU on the trade of items such as mobile phones and computer chips have recently moved in on Europe’s €90bn (£81bn) carbon market.
Last month Revenue & Customs raided 27 businesses and private addresses across London in relation to a suspected £38m VAT fraud on carbon credits. It has since released nine suspects on bail but the investigation is continuing.
With just two months to go before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, the EU is desperate to get its house in order as it tries to get its form of “cap-and-trade” carbon trading scheme adopted around the world as a key weapon against carbon emissions.
Officials know that a carbon market leaking millions to VAT “carousel” fraudsters would be difficult to sell on the international stage so it has moved quickly in response to a surge in VAT fraud on carbon this summer.
Brussels said it would harmonise policy between EU states and introduce a so-called “reverse charge” mechanism, which would remove the need for VAT to change hands between carbon traders every time carbon credits are sold.
Surge
This was the method adopted by the Dutch government in July as carbon traders noticed a surge in trading volumes that could only be attributed to fraud. The French government simply removed VAT from carbon markets, while the British made carbon trading zero-rated for VAT purposes.
The three countries are home to the bloc’s main carbon exchanges: Climex in Amsterdam, BlueNext in Paris and London’s Climate Spot Exchange and European Climate Exchange.
László Kovács, the European commissioner for taxation and customs, said: “VAT carousel fraud is against member states’ finances and they should have the means to combat it efficiently. However, actions taken against this fraud should be taken in a consistent manner across the EU and clear evaluation criteria should be established.
“Very recently, several member states have been confronted with carousel fraud related to greenhouse-gas emission allowances … the very high mobility of these allowances and the very high amounts at stake are an important element.”
A Treasury spokesman said: “The UK government took decisive action in July to protect taxpayer revenue from the threat of VAT fraud on carbon credits.
“We support the commission in seeking an EU-wide solution and will consider any proposal carefully.”
Missing trader
In its simplest form, the fraud occurs when a trader of credits in, say, Britain, buys some from another country free of VAT, then sells them on within Britain, charging the VAT to the buyer. The seller then disappears without handing the VAT over to the taxman. This is known as “missing trader” fraud.
Some criminals re-export the credits, reclaiming VAT as they do so, then re-import them again. They can do this repeatedly, reclaiming VAT many times, hence the term “carousel” fraud.
Britain lost billions of pounds to carousel fraud, mainly on mobile phones, in 2006 and 2007 before the government changed the mobile trade to “reverse charge” VAT, meaning the tax was only levied on the final buyer and removed from the supply chain.
The European Union’s carbon market is now worth about €90bn a year. It is a combination of futures and spot trading and it is the largely unregulated spot market that has been targeted this summer by the fraudsters.
Sophisticated
The European police agency, Europol, has said it is convinced many other carbon credit VAT frauds have been committed across Europe but the total losses to national governments are largely unknown, although probably run in to the hundreds of millions of euros.
“This represents a considerable degree of sophistication on the part of the fraudsters,” said Andrew Roycroft, a tax lawyer with Norton Rose.
He noted that the commission had also empowered member states to bring in a reverse charge on other items where fraud is suspected, including trade in perfume and in precious metals such as platinum – widely used in jewellery and catalytic converters in cars.
“There is clearly a problem in more than one member state and not just in the markets for mobile phones and carbon credits,” he said.
Richard Ainsworth, professor of VAT policy at Boston University, applauded the commission’s move as a short-term fix. But longer term, he said, countries could fix their VAT systems and make them fraud-proof by introducing a system of certified tax compliance software that firms would have to use to prove their legitimacy.

Sudanese Government Appreciates China’s Support on National Issues

Sudanese gov’t appreciates China’s support to Sudan’s issues

http://www.chinaview.cn
2009-09-30 06:11:46
by Fayez Hassan Zaki, Shao Jie

KHARTOUM, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) — A senior Sudanese official on Tuesday expressed his government’s appreciation of China’s stances supporting Sudan whether regarding the Darfur crisis, the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between northern and southern Sudan, or the implementation of many Sudanese strategic projects.

In a special interview with Xinhua on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Sudanese Presidential Advisor Mustafa Osman said “we appreciate this strategic partnership between Sudan and China.”

“The relationship between Sudan and China has remained solid and deeply-rooted. It has never been affected by the changes of governments in Sudan, but instead, witnessed advanced leaps in the economic, political and humanitarian fields,” he added.

Ismail went on saying that “in Sudan we regard China as a country that has managed to establish a modern state and achieved stability and welfare for its people. China has also managed to achieve a remarkable economic progress, and through its fixed and stable policy, succeeded in supporting the third world countries and above all else established positive stances towards Africa and the Arab world.”

The Sudanese official further noted that China had successfully managed to build a strong economy, overcoming many world crisis, the last of which the global financial crisis, saying “because of its strong economy, China has not been affected by the recent global economic crisis, but instead it has been a support for the great economies which collapsed because of the crisis.”

Ismail reiterated his country’s support to China’s policy, which works to preserve unity of the Chinese lands, saying “we support China’s wise policy which restored many of the Chinese lands such as Hong Kong and others to China. It is a policy that we believe to restore the rest of the Chinese lands such as Taiwan.”

He said Sudan was keen to develop its relations with China in all fields and that Sudan was attaching a great concern to the cooperation with China in the agricultural field.

“Following the great development in the cooperation between the two countries in the field of energy, we are currently entering an important field, which is agriculture, to provide food,” the Sudanese official stressed.

He disclosed that a high-level Chinese delegation would visit Sudan in November to discuss with the Sudanese side agricultural cooperation and sign a number of agricultural projects, saying “we believe there is no ceiling in the cooperation with China, but in fact it is a relation that covers the different fields.”

“We hope to make use of the Chinese experience in the agricultural field, because China is of few countries that are ready to transfer their technologies to the different peoples and countries,” he affirmed.

He described the Sino-African relations as “strategic and constructive,” explaining “we see that the Sino-African relations are very important because China’s external policy does not stand on intervention in the internal affairs of countries as some superpower countries do. The Chinese policy, as well, is not confined to provision of humanitarian assistance but also provides development programmes that contribute to stability of the economies of the African countries.”

“Because of this external policy, the African countries appreciate and welcome cooperation with China. Additionally, the relationship between Africa and China has significantly outdone other relationships that built on colonialist bases and divided Africa to francophone and Angelo-Saxon states.”

The Chinese Embassy in Sudan celebrated on Tuesday the 60th anniversary of the founding of People’s Republic of China.

Chinese Ambassador in Sudan Li Chengwen held a reception on the occasion at the Friendship Hall in Khartoum. It was attended by the representative of the Sudanese President and Minister of Finance and National Economy Awad Ahmed al-Jaz, the Presidential Adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail, Secretary-General of the Council for International People’s Friendship in Sudan Ahmed Abdel Rahman Mohamed.

Meanwhile, hundreds of representatives of the foreign diplomatic missions accredited to Khartoum as well as Chinese companies and other organizations in this African country also attended the reception.

The Discourse and the Reality Do Not Agree: Cuban Foreign MinisterSpeaks at UN General Assembly

The discourse and the reality do not agree

Speech given by Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Cuba, during the debate in the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly

Mr. President,

I would like to congratulate you on your election and confirm our confidence in your total ability to lead our work and deliberations.

Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of CubaI also wish to recognize the excellent administration of Father Miguel D’ Escoto, president of the recently concluded session. The ethical dimension and political reach of his presidency made us advance in our determination to restore to this assembly all of its powers and they will constitute an obligatory reference in the future. With his example, it has become clearer that reforming the United Nations is to democratize it and bring it closer to the people.

Since the general debate took place here one year ago, significant events have occurred on the international stage. Climate change is the most perceptible and dangerous. The economic crisis acquired an intense and global character. Social exclusion grew.

However, the international community reacted with profound optimism to the change of government in Washington. It seemed that a period of extreme aggressiveness, unilateralism and arrogance in that country’s foreign policy was coming to an end, leaving the infamous legacy of the regime of George W. Bush sunk in repudiation.

As could be appreciated in this very hall, the innovative and conciliatory discourse coming from the White House is arousing widespread hope and its reiterated messages of change, dialogue and cooperation have been welcomed. Unfortunately, time is passing and the discourse does not appear to be sustained by concrete acts. The discourse and reality do not agree.

The gravest and most dangerous aspect of this new situation is uncertainty as to the real capacity of the current authorities in Washington to overcome the political and ideological currents that threatened the world under the previous president.

The neoconservative groups, which placed George Bush in the presidency, promoters of the use of force and domination under the protection of the colossal U.S. military and economic power; responsible for crimes that include torture, murder and the manipulation of the U.S. people, have rapidly regrouped and have conserved immense resources of power and influence against the announced change.

The torture and detention center on the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay that usurps Cuban territory has not been closed down. The withdrawal of occupation forces in Iraq has not come about. The war in Afghanistan is expanding and threatening other states.

In the case of Cuba, which has suffered the aggression of the United States for more than half a century, last April the new government announced measures to abolish one of the most brutal actions of George W. Bush, which prohibited links between Cuban residents in the United States and their family members in Cuba, in particular the possibility of visiting them and sending them aid without limitations. These measures constitute a positive step, but are extremely limited and insufficient.

The announcement included the authorization for U.S. companies to undertake certain telecommunications operations with Cuba, but other restrictions that prevent its implementation have not been modified. Neither are there any signs that the U.S. government is prepared to put an end to the immoral practice, recently extended, of robbing Cuban funds frozen in U.S. banks and other assets, under the protection of orders from corrupt judges who are violating their own laws.

The essential issue is that the economic, commercial, and financial blockade of Cuba remains intact.

Despite the existence of laws like the Helms-Burton Act, the president of the United States retains broad executive powers — such as licenses — via which he could modify the application of the blockade.

If a real will for change existed, the U.S. government could authorize the export of Cuban goods and services to the Untied States and from the United States to Cuba.

It could permit Cuba to acquire, anywhere in the world, any product that contains more than 10% of U.S. components or technology, independently of its trademark or origin.

The Treasury Department could abstain from harassing, freezing and confiscating transfers from third countries in U.S. dollars and other currencies to Cuban entities and nationals.

Washington could suspend its prohibition on ships from third countries docking in U.S. ports for 180 days after having touched a Cuban port.

It could also suspend the Treasury Department’s persecution of financial companies and entities that do business with and operate with Cuba.

President Obama could allow U.S. citizens, via licenses, to travel to Cuba, the only country in the world they are prohibited from visiting.

The report to this Assembly from the United Nations secretary general contains abundant examples. In 2009, numerous actions of fining, confiscating or impeding Cuban transactions and those of third countries with Cuba have been documented.

According to the Treasury Department itself, since January of this year, almost half the money collected by its Office of Foreign Assets Control came from penalties levied on U.S. and foreign companies for supposed violations of the economic blockade of Cuba.

The real and indisputable fact is that the new U.S. government has not as yet heeded the overwhelming demand of the international community, expressed in this General Assembly year after year, to end the blockade of Cuba.

Two weeks ago, President Obama notified the secretaries of State and of the Treasury — contrary to what the opinion surveys of the U.S. people reveal — that it is of “national interest” to maintain economic sanctions against Cuba under the Trading with the Enemy Act, passed in 1917 to deal with situations of war and applied only to Cuba.

The U.S. blockade of Cuba is a unilateral act of aggression, which should be ended unilaterally.

For many years, Cuba has expressed its will to normalize relations with the United States.

On August 1, President Raúl Castro publicly reiterated Cuba’s disposition to sustain a respectful dialogue with the United States, between equals, without any shadow over our independence, sovereignty and self-determination. He noted that we should mutually respect our differences, and that we do not recognize that country’s government, or any other, or any group of states whatsoever, as having jurisdiction over our sovereign affairs.

The Cuban government has proposed to the government of the United States the essential matters that it considers necessary to address in an eventual process of dialogue aimed at improving relations. These are the lifting of the economic, commercial and financial blockade; Cuba’s exclusion from the spurious list of terrorist countries; the annulment of the Cuban Adjustment Act and the “wet-foot/dry-foot” policy; compensation for economic and human damages; the return of the territory occupied by the Guantánamo naval base; the end of radio and television aggression from the United States against Cuba; and a halt to its financing of internal subversion.

An essential issue on that agenda is the release of the five Cuban anti-terrorists who, for 11 years, have been suffering unjust imprisonment in the United States. President Obama has the constitutional prerogative to release them, as an act of justice and of his government’s commitment against terrorism.

We have proposed to the United States, moreover, to initiate talks for establishing cooperation to confront drug trafficking, terrorism, and human trafficking, to protect the environment and confront natural disasters.

It is in this spirit that the Cuban government has held talks with the U.S. government on migration and on the reestablishment of a direct mail service. Those talks have been respectful and useful.

Mr. President:

Cuba enjoys extensive and productive relations in every corner of the planet. With the single exception of the United States, Cuba has friendly relations with every country in this hemisphere and can count on the solidarity of the region.

We practice cooperation in solidarity with dozens of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ours is stable country, with a united, educated and healthy people, which has more than demonstrated its ability to confront, even under blockade conditions, the consequences of the global crisis and the effects of climate change, which in the past year cost the national economy 20% of its gross domestic product.

Cuba is in a position to face its own problems and find solutions to them. We do so in a just and equitable society, which rests upon its own efforts, and which has been able to advance and direct its development in the most adverse conditions.

We are prepared to continue facing those challenges with equanimity and patience, with the confidence that no citizen has been left or will be left to their own fate, and with the assurance that we are defending a cause of national independence and a social project that has great support from the Cuban people.

Anyone who tries to put an end to the Revolution or break the determination of the Cuban people is suffering from delusions. Patriotism, social justice and determination to defend independence are all part of our national identity.

Mr. President:

Latin America and the Caribbean are at a dramatic juncture, defined by the acute contradiction between the great majorities, which together with progressive governments and broad social movements, are demanding justice and equity, facing the traditional oligarchies bent on preserving their privileges.

The coup d’état in Honduras is a reflection of that. The coup-plotters and usurpers who kidnapped that country’s legitimate president are in violation of the Constitution and are brutally repressing their people, as in the dark period of military dictatorships backed by the United States in Latin America.

Hundreds of thousands of murdered, disappeared and tortured people are agitating in the awareness of “Our America” in the face of impunity.

It has yet to be clarified why the aircraft that kidnapped the constitutional president of Honduras made a stopover on the U.S. air base in Palmerola. The U.S. fascist right, symbolized by Cheney, is openly supporting and backing the coup.

President José Manuel Zelaya should be restored fully, immediately and unconditionally to the exercise of his constitutional functions.

The inviolability of the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa must be respected, and the siege and aggression against its facilities must cease.

The Honduran people are resisting heroically and will have the last word.

These events coincide with the renewed and aggressive interest of the United States in establishing military bases in Latin America, and with the reestablishment of the 4th Fleet, obviously with the objective of placing U.S. troops within reach of the region in a question of hours, thus threatening revolutionary and progressive processes — particularly the Bolivarian Revolution in the sister nation of Venezuela, and procuring control of the region’s oil and other natural resources.

The slander and lies against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are brutal. It should be recalled that that is how atrocious acts of aggression against our homeland developed and were executed.

The broader and clearer that the policy toward that fraternal country becomes, the more it will contribute to the peace, independence and development of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Latin America and the Caribbean can advance, and to a certain degree they are advancing, toward new and superior forms of integration. They have water, land, forests, mineral resources and energy resources superior to any other region on the planet. Their combined population is in excess of 570 million.

The Rio Group, the Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development (CALC) and UNASUR are bodies created by virtue of the ties that unite us.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) and the PETROCARIBE cooperation concept are perfect examples of that.

Mr. President:

The optimistic predictions in Pittsburgh concerning the evolution of the global economic crisis, foretelling a possible economic recovery by early next year, are not based on solid data, and in the best of cases, refer only to an easing of the drop experienced by a very small group of the most powerful economies on the planet. It is striking that objectives have been set, but not one word has been said about how to reach them.

Nobody should ignore the fact that this is an unprecedented crisis of the capitalist system that takes in—respectively—food, energy, the environment, and social and financial crises; nor should they ignore the danger of the inflation/debt combination, the bursting of other financial bubbles, or a second downturn.

The developing countries are not responsible for but are victims of the consequences of the industrialized economies’ irrational and unsustainable model of consumption, exploitation and speculation, attacks on the environment, and corruption.

While this is being debated, the number of hungry people is set to reach a record figure of 1.02 billion in 2009, one-sixth of the world’s population. This year, another 90 million people will be thrown into poverty, and a further 50 million into unemployment. Another 400,000 children are expected to die as a consequence of the crisis in these months.

The measures being adopted are simply palliative ones, preserving the serious shortcomings of an unjust, exclusive and environmentally unsustainable international economic system. An international dialogue is necessary, one that is all-embracing and inclusive, with the active participation of all developing countries.

A new international economic order needs to be established, based on solidarity, justice, equity and sustainable development. The international financial architecture should be re-founded. A central role in this effort belongs to the United Nations, and particularly this General Assembly.

Mr. President

Concluding these words, I wish to repeat Cuba’s gratitude for the traditional and invaluable solidarity that it has received from this General Assembly in its struggle against aggression and blockade. Today that solidarity remains essential.

As Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz stated on this same podium nine years ago: “nothing of that which exists in the economic and political order serves the interests of humanity. It cannot sustain itself. It must be changed. Suffice it to recall that we are now more than six billion inhabitants, of whom 80% are poor. Millenary infirmities of the countries of the Third World, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and other equally deadly diseases have not been defeated; new epidemics like AIDS are threatening to wipe out the populations of entire nations, while the rich countries are investing fabulous sums on military spending and luxuries, and a voracious plague of speculators are exchanging currencies, shares, and other real or fictional securities, for sums rising to trillions of dollars every day. Nature is being destroyed, the climate is changing before our eyes, water for human consumption is being contaminated and is in short supply; humanity’s food sources in the oceans are being exhausted; vital non-renewable resources are being squandered on luxuries and vanities…The dream of reaching truly just and rational regulations to govern human destiny seems impossible to many. Our conviction is that the struggle for the impossible should be the slogan for this institution that brings us together today!”

In spite of everything, the Cuban revolution is victoriously and securely celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Thank you very much

Translated by Granma International

Highland Tower’s Tenants Score Victory Against DTE Energy and AbsenteeLandlords

Highland Towers’s Tenants Score Victory Against DTE Energy and Absentee Landlords

Struggle results in utility restoration and re-location

by Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Detroit

A major struggle against DTE Energy and absentee landlords has reached a conclusion in Highland Park, a municipality surrounded by the city of Detroit. On August 31, DTE Energy shutoff the electricity at the apartment building leaving over 150 residents in the dark and under threat of imminent peril.

Members of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs took action in support of the tenants leading demonstrations, press conferences and an eventual lawsuit filed by the residents against DTE Energy and the landlords. This series of actions resulted in the restoration of electrical power as well as a settlement that provided monetary and material assistance for all of the tenants to re-locate to better living facilities.

An order by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Kathleen MacDonald on September 11 forced DTE Energy to turn the power back on at the apartment building. Two other hearings on September 15 and 18, created the conditions for DTE Energy and the landlords to cover the costs of moving the tenants to other apartments.

Residents of the Highland Towers were empowered by the struggle waged against DTE Energy and the absentee landlords. On September 3, tenants organized by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition went to DTE Energy headquarters in downtown Detroit to demand that their power be restored.

After the tenants and their supporters occupied the lobby of the building, DTE Energy security officials stated that executives would meet with them shortly. After remaining in the building for over an hour, they were told that the lobby was closed and that no one was available to discuss the situation at their apartment building.

An Ongoing Struggle Against DTE Energy

Members of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition had been contacted by DTE Energy top executives on July 21 to discuss a planned demonstration outside their headquarters on July 24 in response to the deaths of four members of the Reed-Owens family on the northwest side of Detroit on July 16. The family had recently filed bankruptcy which should have placed an automatic stay on the termination of utility services.

Despite the filing for bankruptcy, DTE Energy still shutoff the power at the Reed-Owens’ family home on July 15. The family borrowed a generator from their church so that breathing assistance machines could be powered for a child in the home suffering from a respiratory ailment. The malfunction of the generator resulted in the deaths of three children and their father. The mother survived after being rushed to the hospital.

When members of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition met with DTE Energy officials on July 23, they demanded an immediate halt to utility shutoffs in light of the high rates of unemployment and poverty facing millions of people living in Detroit and throughout southeast Michigan. High-ranking executives present at the meeting stated that they would not impose a moratorium but that they would work with Moratorium NOW! in the future to prevent shutoffs.

This was not acceptable to the Coalition and the demonstration went forward on July 24. The action enjoyed broad press coverage. DTE Energy executives told the Moratorium NOW! Coalition members that they could be contacted if there were other issues requiring their attention.

However, when the delegation of Moratorium NOW! members and tenants from the Highland Towers went to the DTE Energy corporate headquarters on September 3, the executives refused to respond to repeated phone calls. The following day, in the aftermath of an emergency demonstration in front of DTE Energy headquarters, executives met with Moratorium NOW! organizers and tenants from the Highland Towers.

The executives told the tenants that under no circumstances would they restore the power. They promised to work with human service agencies to provide other assistance to the tenants. DTE Energy representatives said that service providers were on the way to their headquarters to met with tenants. Nonetheless, no one ever showed up inside the DTE Energy building. A car from the United Way drove up outside but the representative never entered the building to speak with the tenants.

The Highland Towers apartments had suffered from years of neglect and mismanagement. Residents had paid their monthly rents, yet the funds collected were never used to make repairs or cover the cost of utility bills. After the Legal Aid and Defenders, Inc. agreed to file a lawsuit on behalf of the tenants against DTE Energy and the landlords, the power was restored and residents received damages in the form of re-location funding.

In a recent article published on the Detroit Blog of Time.com, Highland Towers tenant and co-plantiff in the lawsuit against DTE Energy and the absentee landlords, LaTanya Lloyd narrates the developments surrounding the struggle at Highland Towers. Lloyd, who also attended the National March for Jobs in Pittsburgh on September 20, said in regard to the September 4 meeting with DTE Energy that “When we went to talk with DTE, it was like DTE just didn’t…I hate to say it, but it was like they just didn’t give a s***.”

Lloyd went on to say that “One of the executives told us that the landlord owed over $150,000 to DTE. He said “No, we’re not turning the power back on. This is a business, and we’re in business to make money.” (Time.com, Detroit Blogs, September 25)

Lloyd then stated that “A few days after the power went out, a man named Abayomi from Moratorium NOW! approached us. Moratorium NOW! works with people in the community to stop unfair evictions and foreclosures. And that’s basically what this was, an unfair eviction. Once they got involved, things changed real fast. We got hooked up with Legal Aid and Defenders’ attorneys, and we took DTE to court.”

Lloyd, who is the mother of two children and whose husband is a graphic designer, continued by stating “They still kept fighting us! They told the judge lies about giving us notice, things like that. We never saw any notice from them. Our notice was the power going out. We’re human beings, and we matter. And we just weren’t going to let them do that to us without a fight. And we didn’t. And you know…we won.”

As a result of the struggle in support of the residents at Highland Towers, other human services agencies also became involved. The United Community Housing Coalition, the Detroit Area Agency on Ageing, Southwest Solutions, the Department of Human Services and others came to the building in order to assist the residents with re-location.

On September 21, a delegation of tenants and organizers for the Moratorium NOW! Coalition showed up at the City Council meeting in Highland Park. Mayor Hubert Yopp in his report on the situation at Highland Towers never mentioned the struggle that took place against DTE Energy and the landlords and omitted the fact that the organizing effort resulted in the power being restored.

Building residents blasted the City government for not fighting to protect the interests of its citizens. When Sandra Hines, an organizer for the Moratorium NOW! Coalition rose to go to the podium and speak, residents of the Highland Towers applauded. Hines stated that it was the struggle of the people that resulted in the victory against DTE Energy and the landlords.

On September 23, DTE Energy hosted a community outreach program at the State Fairgrounds purportedly designed to assist people who were having problems in paying their utility bills. Over 10,000 people showed up at the event, most of whom were not able to receive any attention due to the overwhelming turn out.

This outpouring of people clearly demonstrates that there is a state of economic emergency in existence in the state of Michigan. The Moratorium NOW! Coalition has been calling upon the Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm for over a year to exercise her emergency powers by imposing a halt to foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs. Michigan is facing an official unemployment rate of over 15%. The city of Detroit’s official unemployment rate is nearly 29%. Yet the state government and local officials have consistently refused to take action in defense of the people.

At the Highland Park City Council meeting, it was brought out that DTE Energy provides public lighting for the municipality. One resident of Highland Park said that she had repeatedly called DTE Energy about defective lighting on her street. Despite promises from the power company, no action has been taken.

The struggle surrounding the residents at Highland Towers makes the case even clearer for the imposition of a moratorium on evictions and utility shutoffs. The Moratorium NOW! Coalition plans to reach out to more apartment buildings where tenants are facing threats of eviction and utility shutoffs.

India plans to cut carbon and fuel poverty with untested nuclear power

Prime minister Manmohan Singh announces 100-fold increase in nuclear energy output by 2050 with thorium technology
Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 29 September 2009 13.29 BST
India’s prime minister today signalled a huge push in nuclear power over the coming decades, using an untested technology based on nuclear waste and the radioactive element thorium.
Manmohan Singh, speaking at a conference of atomic scientists in Delhi, announced that 470,000MW of energy could come from Indian nuclear power stations by 2050 — more than 100 times the current output from India’s current 17 reactors.
“This will sharply reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and will be a major contribution to global efforts to combat climate change,” he said, adding that Asia was now seeing a huge spurt in nuclear plant building. The Indian plan, which relies on untested technology, was criticised by anti-nuclear campaigners as “a nightmare disguised as a dream”.
The prime minister said a breakthrough deal with the US, sanctioned by the international community, had opened the door for the country to “think big” and meet the demands of its billion-strong population. He did not say how much the plans would cost, or how they would be paid for.
The intervention comes as talks in Bangkok aimed at resolving the impasse between developing and developed countries over a new climate change deal to replace the Kyoto protocol have stalled. India, one of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, has been dismayed that its pledges of action – including a dramatic expansion of nuclear power - have been met with inaction from richer nations.
The prime minister’s statement also brings Delhi alongside Beijing which has long promoted atomic energy. India’s plan would see it leapfrog its northern neighbour. At present China has 11 reactors in operation producing 8,000MW but has proposed that by 2020 this output be increased 10-fold. The UK, by contrast, has an installed capacity of around 12,000MW, much of which is due to go offline and be replaced by a new fleet of reactors in the next decade.
Nuclear power has been a contentious issue in India. Although the country has had a decades-old atomic programme, it was effectively blacklisted from global civilian nuclear trade after testing a nuclear device in 1974. That embargo was lifted in 2008 after negotations with Washington.
The result has been a rush to sign deals – both to supply uranium and to build reactors. France, Russia and the United States have all sought access to the booming Indian market.
India has an ambitious three-stage nuclear programme which it sees as a “silver bullet” to its dire energy shortage. At present 400m people cannot light their homes and the country imports 70% of its oil.
Delhi says that it will be able to surmount these considerable problems and generate clean green power with an atomic programme that “virtuously recycles” the plutonium waste that reactors produce. This radioactive isotope takes thousands of years to be rendered safe and dealing with it is the greatest challenge facing nuclear energy’s proponents.
The Indian plan turns this waste into fuel. Using thorium, which is abundant in the country, combined with plutonium, the country aims to produce power and “breed” stockpiles of uranium.
It is a technology that no other country has mastered – and many have dropped – but India still has more than 2,000 scientists working on the technical problems.
Singh said the country had entered “stage two” of the programme and had completed a prototype breeder reactor in southern India.
However campaigners said “if climate change is the problem, nuclear power is not the answer”. SP Udayakumar, convenor of India’s Alliance for Anti-Nuclear Movements, questioned whether the technology India was pushing would ever be ready.
“The nuclear technology the prime minister talks about is not proven. If we start going ahead then the issue is the amount of carbon emitted by building, maintaining, operating and decommissioning nuclear plants means that (nuclear power) is a hugely polluting technology. If it does not work then we are left with waste that takes 24,000 years to become safe. It is a gamble we will pay for generations to come.”