Labor Voice: Economic Fix Requires More Government Aid, Says UAWPresident Bob King

September 1, 2010
http://detnews.com/article/20100901/OPINION01/9010342

Labor Voices: Economic fix requires more government aid

BOB KING

Millions of Americans are hurting right now. When we help them, we’re also helping to put the economy back on track.

Our program to rebuild Detroit and America includes these key initiatives:

Investments in our cities, infrastructure, industries and people.

Guaranteed justice for workers.

An end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unemployment checks are being spent on necessities, providing a needed boost in consumer spending. More federal assistance to states and cities will prevent layoffs, cuts in services and tax increases that threaten to further squeeze consumer demand and push the economy back into recession. A moratorium on foreclosures will not only keep families in their homes, but also help stabilize neighborhoods and protect housing values.

Aid for the unemployed. Republicans tried to prevent extensions of unemployment benefits for Americans. In July, the Senate finally acted to extend unemployment benefits to jobless workers, but that extension runs out at the end of November.

In the meantime, the COBRA subsidy that allowed many jobless workers to continue health insurance coverage has been allowed to expire. So has the extra $25 per week that unemployed workers were receiving as part of the Recovery Act.

Congress needs to act promptly to ensure that benefits for the long-term unemployed continue beyond November. The 65 percent COBRA premium subsidy and $25 increase in weekly benefits should both be restored immediately.

Aid for cities and states. Cities and states continue to reel from the economic downturn, and their plight is adding to our jobs crisis. State and local governments nationwide have eliminated more than 300,000 jobs over the last two years.

The federal government has the power to stop this destructive cycle by extending financial assistance to state and local governments. Recent congressional action providing $26 billion for Medicaid and education was helpful, but did not go far enough.

Direct job creation. With hiring in the private sector weak, and with states and cities cutting their employment, the federal government should directly fund the creation of public service jobs, as it has done historically in other periods of high unemployment. The Local Jobs for America Act, introduced by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., would provide $75 billion over two years to local governments and states, targeting those communities where the need is greatest, for programs to put the unemployed to work on community service projects run by local governments or nonprofits.

Moratorium on foreclosures. Foreclosures are devastating neighborhoods across the country. According to RealtyTrac, there were 11,889 homes in foreclosure in Detroit in July, and 100,995 across Michigan. Despite $75 billion in funding for mortgage modifications to assist beleaguered homeowners, financial institutions are dragging their feet.

Meanwhile, another 18,833 foreclosures were filed in Michigan in July, according to RealtyTrac. To give struggling families a meaningful opportunity to save their homes (and to create a push for lenders to work with them toward that end), we support legislation (S.B. 29) introduced in the Michigan State Legislature to establish a two-year moratorium on foreclosures.

Let’s put the economy back on track and rebuild America.

Bob King is president of the United Auto Workers. E-mail comments to letters@detnews.com”>letters@detnews.com.

Additional Facts
Labor Voices
Labor Voices columns are written on a rotating basis by United Auto Workers President Bob King, Teamster President James Hoffa, Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney and Michigan Education Association President Iris Salters.

Security Council deplores deadly attack against peacekeepers in Somalia

The Security Council has strongly condemned the attack against the presidential palace in the Somali capital that has killed four Ugandan peacekeepers serving with the African Union mission in the war-torn Horn of Africa country.

UN committee welcomes resumption of direct talks between Israelis, Palestinians

A United Nations committee on Palestinian rights today welcomed the recent decision by Israelis and Palestinians to resume direct talks with the aim of resolving all permanent status issues.

Volcano wakes from four-century sleep

A Sumatran volcano dormant for 400 years has erupted, spewing smoke and ash several kilometres into the air

Russia’s Putin braves rough seas to study whales

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin braved rough seas to help scientists study whales off Russia’s Pacific coast on Wednesday but was rebuked by environmentalists for allowing oil exploration nearby.

Putin, a Judo black-belt who has been filmed shooting a tiger and flying a fighter plane, shot a grey whale with an adapted crossbow from a rubber dinghy to take a sample of its skin in his latest action-man photo-op.

“I missed three times but hit on the fourth,” said Putin, holding up the skin sample. “It’s a great feeling.”

The sample, taken at the Kronotsky reserve 300 kilometers (190 miles) northeast of Vladivostok will be used to help scientists tell which population the whales come from, Putin said.

But environmentalists were not impressed. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) issued a statement criticizing Putin for staging an event to highlight his save-the-whale credentials while state-controlled oil-firm Rosneft threatens a population nearby.

“As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin today helped scientists research the gray whale… Rosneft, continues its two-month seismic survey in the nearby shallow waters off Sakhalin Island… which gravely threatens a subpopulation of those same whales,” IFAW said in a statement.

Rosneft, managed by close allies of Putin, is undertaking seismic surveys to the east of Russia’s Sakhalin island, blasting sound at the sea bed to map its geology.

Environmentalists say the surveys disturb female whales who rely on a strip of shallow water teach their calves to feed.

Source:
Reuters,”Russia’s Putin braves rough seas to study whales“, accessed August 26, 2010

Four Israelis Killed in West Bank Area in Palestine

Four Israelis killed in West Bank

Military wing of Hamas claims responsibility for attack that killed four Israelis travelling on a highway near Hebron

31 Aug 2010 21:18

Israeli rescue services said the victims were two men and two women

The military wing of Hamas has claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed four Israelis near Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

At least one gunman opened fire on a car driving on Highway 60 near the Kiryat Arba settlement on Tuesday.

The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, claimed responsibility for the attack in a short statement posted on its website, and said it would be the first in a “series of operations” in the West Bank.

Israseli rescue services said the victims were two men and two women, and that one of the women was pregnant.

This is the first fatal attack on Israelis in the West Bank since June, when one police officer was killed and two others wounded in an ambush. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for that attack.

The shooting comes one day before Palestinian and Israeli officials are scheduled to meet in Washington in an effort to relaunch direct negotiations.

‘Against Palestinian interests’

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera that Hamas had not planned any attacks intended to sabotage the Israeli-PA talks. But Hamdan said he was speaking for the political wing of Hamas, and that the Qassam Brigades could have planned the attack independently.

“We believe that there is no need to do something like this to sabotage these negotiations, because Netanyahu has [already] done this,” he said.

Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, condemned the shooting, saying it was “against Palestinian interests”. He said the PA will “take measures” to prevent future attacks.

Israeli officials have called security one of their top priorities for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said that “the establishment of tangible security measures” was a precondition for talks with the PA.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, acknowledged Israel’s security concerns in an address earlier this week, but said they could not be used as a pretext for a “land grab”. Kiryat Arba is built on land seized during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and is considered an illegal settlement by the United Nations.

Attack condemned

Palestinian leaders committed to the peace process joined Israel and the United States in condemning Tuesday’s attack, saying direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations which have been suspended for 20 months but due to resume this week, would not be derailed.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, commenting as she met Abbas and Netanyahu in Washington: “This kind of savage brutality has no place in any country under any circumstances.”

Abbas in condemning “any operation that targets civilians, Palestinians or Israelis”, said the incident was intended to “disrupt the political process”.

“The Palestinian president and the Palestinian leadership have condemned the attack that occurred near Hebron, in keeping with our principle of rejecting all attacks against civilians, whether they are Israelis or Palestinians,” a statement from Abbas’ office said.

“The goal of this attack claimed by Hamas is simply to disrupt the political process,” the statement added. “It cannot be considered an act of resistance.”

In a statement issued shortly after the shooting, Netanyahu said he directed Israeli security forces to “pursue the attackers without any diplomatic restraint”.

The Israeli leader vowed to seek punishment for those involved, saying: “We will not let the blood of Israeli civilians go unpunished. We will find the murderers, we will punish their dispatchers.”

“We will not let terror decide where Israelis live or the configuration of our final borders. These and other issues will be determined in negotiations for peace that we are conducting,” added Netanyahu.

‘Sabotage the process’

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s executive committee, told Al Jazeera that the timing of the attack “is related to the beginning of talks”.

“There seems to be a pattern each time there is an advance [in the peace process] or the commencement of talks, attacks happen,” she said.

“The situation here is unstable, unsecure, and people pay attention when there is violence against Israelis, while the violence Palestinians face at the hands of Israelis on a daily basis goes unnoticed.”

PJ Crowley, a spokesman for the US state department, called for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to show “determination” and continue talks despite any violence.

“We are cognizant that there could be external events that can … have an impact on the environment,” he said at a press briefing in Washington.

“We are also cognizant that there may well be actors in the region who are deliberately making these kinds of attacks in order to sabotage the process.

“Not everyone sees this in the same way, and there are those who will do whatever they can to disrupt the process.”

The Israeli embassy in Washington issued a short statement in response to the attack. “[It was] clearly intended to derail the peace talks, but we will not be deterred from seeking peace,” it said.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

From the Inbox - Help us certify 150,000 habitats

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Broaden COMESA Free Trade Area: President Mugabe of Zimbabwe TellsRegional Summit in Swaziland

Broaden Comesa FTA: President

From Tumeliso Makhurane at LOZITHA PALACE, Swaziland
Zimbabwe Herald

PRESIDENT Mugabe has urged the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa to broaden its Free Trade Area to take on board other regional blocs and move away from exporting primary products in favour of processed goods.

In his keynote address as the outgoing Comesa Authority chairman, the President said it was important “to establish not just another FTA, but a grand and wider one covering half the continent of Africa”.

He said Comesa was committed to the tripartite arrangements with the East African Community, and Sadc that were established in 2005 in line with Comesa’s vision of economic integration.

“Given our decade of experience in operating duty-free, quota-free trade regime in Comesa, and given the benefits that our member states have derived and witnessed under our own FTA over the last decade, we are keen that the tripartite FTA be established as soon as possible,” he said.

He said it was encouraging that Comesa had moved from preferential arrangements to a fully developed FTA where trade was done free of duty and trade barriers among member countries with the resultant intra-Comesa trade rising over 500 percent from under US$3 billion in the year 2000 to over US$15 billion last year.

“It is perhaps worth noting and reiterating that, while we export commodities to the rest of the world and import finished goods, trade among ourselves under the Comesa FTA has mostly been in agro-processed and semi-manufactured products.

“Greater efforts still need to be deployed towards trade in commodities within the region, to move away from primary production to enhanced value addition to these commodities so that we create more job opportunities and effectively contribute to reducing poverty and concurrently raise incomes of our citizens,” said President Mugabe.

The President said in agriculture and industrial development, positive strides had been made by such member countries as Malawi, Zambia, Sudan and Egypt to produce staple food such as maize, rice and sugar in excess of their countries’ needs.

The increased production levels, he said, had not only contributed to food security, self-sufficiency and increased commodity exports within and beyond the region but increased linkages with agro-processing and value addition across the region.

Closer interaction of the Comesa business opportunity had been facilitated through platforms such as the Comesa Business Forum.

“I am again delighted to note that we have streamlined customs procedures and practices culminating in the establishment of a one-stop border post at Chirundu on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border.

“Efforts are also underway to establish similar trade facilitation initiatives located at other borders, including at Kaumbalesa on the Zambia-DRC border, at Nakonde on the Tanzania-Zambia border, at Malaba on the Ugandan-Kenya border and at Mchinji on the Malawi-Zambia border, just to mention a few,” President Mugabe said.

On infrastructural development, the Comesa Transport and Communications Strategy and Priority Investment Plan and the Comesa Infrastructure Fund had been set up to provide a base for mobilising investment resources for infrastructure and services to increase regional connectivity and networks integration in the Comesa region.

Cde Mugabe noted, however, that trade in services had lagged behind in trade liberalisation.

Services contribute between 15 percent and 65 percent of National Gross Domestic Products.

“Services such as tourism, telecommunications, finance, construction, transport, whether land, air or maritime, and educational and health services, can significantly raise economic activity and the well-being of our people.”

President Mugabe said to support such trade initiatives, there was need to put in place sustainable funding arrangements with the proposed Common Market Levy being one of the examples.

He urged member states to consider such a levy to fund the operations of the Customs Union and related integration programmes.

“Being part of the competing global economy, we cannot wholly depend on co-operating partners to fund our integration arrangements. For our programmes to be sustainable, we need to negotiate specific user-friendly arrangements, be it with the EU under Economic Partnership Agreements, or the rest of the world under the World Trade Organisation,” said the President.

On peace and security, the President said Comesa had made tremendous progress in its quest for peace and stability in the region with conflicts in central Africa and parts of the Horn of Africa having been resolved through peace processes. Focus was now on post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation efforts.

Though challenges still remained, efforts were being put in place to stem conflict through a policy organ of Ministers of Foreign Affairs who were taking a pro-active approach to prevention of violent conflicts. A Conflict Early Warning System and a Committee of Elders for preventive diplomacy had also been put in place.

Biofuels For Europe Drive Land Grabbing in Africa

Biofuels For Europe Drive Land Grabbing In Africa

Tuesday, 31 August 2010, 11:38 am
Press Release: Akanimo Sampson

Biofuels For Europe Drive Land Grabbing In Africa

The amount of farmland being taken in Africa to meet Europe’s increasing demand for biofuels is underestimated and out of control, new investigations by Friends of the Earth reveal today.

The research, which looked at 11 African countries, found at least five million hectares of land – an area the size of Denmark – is being acquired by foreign companies to produce biofuels mainly for the European market.

The practice – known as land grabbing – is increasing and is dominated by European companies. However with official public information largely absent, current figures are likely to be only a snapshot and gross underestimates.

The report, ‘Africa: Up For Grabs’ reveals how local communities are having their land taken and there are few safeguards for local community land rights. Forests and natural vegetation are being cleared, and biofuels are competing with food crops for farmland.

Even more land will be required for biofuels if the European Union is to reach its target of 10% of transport fuels from renewable sources by 2020, according to the research.

Adrian Bebb, food and agriculture campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: “Our research shows that Europe’s demand for biofuels is a major driver of land grabbing in Africa. Local communities are facing increasing hunger and food insecurity just so Europe can fuel its cars. The EU must urgently scrap its biofuel policy. Europe must invest instead in environmentally friendly agriculture and decrease the energy we use for transport.”

A leaked World Bank report on wider land grabbing corroborates this pattern, stating that ‘consultations with local communities were often weak… Conflicts were common, usually over land rights.’ The World Bank has so far refused to release these controversial findings publicly.

In Tanzania , Madagascar and Ghana there have been protests following land-grabs by foreign companies.

Mariann Bassey, African food and agriculture coordinator for Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) said: “The expansion of biofuels on our continent is transforming forests and natural vegetation into fuel crops, taking away food-growing farmland from communities, and creating conflicts with local people over land ownership. We want real investment in agriculture that allows us to produce food and not fuel for foreign cars.”

This is just one example of Europe’s over use of the world’s resources. Friends of the Earth Europe is calling on the EU to start measuring and curbing its use of land, water, materials, and climate emissions around the world.

Zimbabwe: Whose Country Is It Anyway?

Whose country is it anyway?

Courtesy of the Zimbabwe Herald

MARY MAGDALENE, one of the most unheralded biblical characters is ironically at the centre of the Christianity that spawned the Bible. For it was from Mary Magdalene’s visit to Jesus’ tomb that the world got to know that the Messiah had triumphed over death.

Mary Magdalene was not only the first to witness the resurrected Christ, she was also the first to preach the resurrection to the apostles which is why much of the gospels are attributed to her testimony, which testimony became the bedrock of Christianity.

At the centre of Christianity, of course, is the remission of sins, manifest in being born again where the old life is deemed to have passed away for a new, apparently squeaky clean one to begin in Christ.

It appears that to some of our neophytes in politics here, their sojourn to State House on February 13 last year for swearing-in was the equivalent of being born again, where their history of colluding with Westerners against their own people passed away and they emerged as born-again, patriotic Zimbabweans fit to be among cadres that venerated commanders like Josiah Magama Tongogara and Alfred Nikita Mangena would proudly inspect if they were to rise up today.

These characters; among them ex-Rhodesian Front, Rhodesian African Rifles and Selous Scouts members; apparently believe they can be counted among the bones that Mbuya Nehanda foretold would rise as she was led to the gallows by the same forces bankrolling the MDC today, which bones rose amid strong opposition from some of the MDC top brass.

I will not burden you with the names dear reader, for they are too many to mention but MDC leaders and their handlers seem to be on a campaign to rewrite our history to portray a nation as old as February 13, 2010.

For the record, the MDC was launched as a knee-jerk reaction to the Zanu-PF led government’s move to acquire white-held farmers without compensation following the decision by the Labour regime of Tony Blair to renege on obligations to fund land reforms in Zimbabwe.

The three main British parties; Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats then got together as the Westminster Foundation and agreed to launch the MDC on a ZCTU platform; the party’s primary objective being to unseat Zanu-PF and kill the impending land reforms.

This is why from launch MDC leaders have opposed land reforms, only grudgingly accepting them in the text of the so-called GPA that gave birth to the inclusive Government.

The MDC was not launched to fight Zanu-PF the party, but the logical conclusion of the Second Chimurenga manifest in taking the liberation struggle from the political to the economic dimension.

The MDC’s reactionary nature explains why the party had no problems attracting and filling its ranks with ex-Rhodesian Front, Rhodesian African Rifles, Selous Scouts, Special Branch and BSAP operatives for their mission in the MDC was just a continuation of their mission in the Rhodesian Security Forces.

Out of the realisation that Zanu-PF was entrenched in the hearts of Zimbabweans, the MDC and its handlers settled on economic sanctions to bring socio-economic hardships that were designed to separate the people from Zanu-PF. As any sane person knows, sanctions are a form of economic warfare; as such the MDC was complicit in declaring war against the people.

Therefore what MDC leaders have done and willed on Zimbabweans can never be considered heroic; it’s treasonous which is why it came as a surprise that Tsvangirai would have the temerity to write to President Mugabe seeking National Hero Status for Gibson Sibanda, may his soul rest in peace.

Ofcourse, Tsvangirai is not God’s gift to logical thought but short of mischief, I do not see any other word to describe his charade. Unless of course he wanted to lay his own groundwork, for if Sibanda were to be declared a national hero on the back of his ZCTU and MDC record, surely, Tsvangirai, who was with him throughout, would also be declared a hero.

The question then becomes; since those in the MDC have been fighting Zanu-PF from inception what would that make of Zanu-PF if the MDC cause was to be considered progressive and the party leadership’s actions heroic? The anti-thesis of a hero is a villain, so if Tsvangirai and Sibanda are heroes, it follows that all in Zanu-PF are villains, and their cause was and is villainous.

That will mean the thousands of patriots who perished from the day the Pioneer Column hoisted the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury on September 12, 1890 were all villains, Alfred Milner, the British High Commissioner to the Cape Colony, who ordered Mbuya Nehanda’s execution was a hero executing a villain, Morrison Nyathi who connived with the Smith regime to murder innocent men, women and children in Chimoio was a hero murdering villains. The history of our beautiful country will truly become the history of the white man in Africa.

MDC leaders have to be told in no uncertain terms that the National Heroes Acre is not for everybody. It is for those who distinguished themselves in liberating this country, and those people can only be found in the ranks of the former liberation movements Zanla and Zipra that came together under Zanu-PF.

These are the people who know what went on in the bush, and who distinguished themselves not Tsvangirai who was working in the textile mills of Mutare and the mine shafts of Bindura having lasted no more than 24 hours in a liberation training camp, or Mutambara who still had milk on his baby nose on April 18, 1980.

Now to the other issues;

MDC leaders, particularly those from Tsvangirai’s camp, should know that Zimbabwe can never sanction its own people. While they may have succeeded in inviting sanctions on this country and also having their Western handlers place all those who criticise them on sanctions lists; that can never happen here.

Tsvangirai’s party has been busy trying to silence all who see it as an ugly duckling not the beautiful swan it wants people to believe it is.

Despite all their pretensions at being democrats who uphold freedom of expression, MDC leaders have been busy trying to silence the Mbare Chimurenga Choir not only because the choir is reminding people of this country’s history of principled resistance to all forms of imperialism and neo-colonialism, but because the songs put the inclusive Government into perspective by debunking the lie that Tsvangirai is in charge, a fib the MDC hoped to use to get credit for any positives that accrue from the inclusive Government.

After failing to silence the melodious, progressive voices from Mbare, MDC leaders have turned their attention President Mugabe’s spokesman, George Charamba, whom they tried to turn into an outstanding issue and now wish to silence on the grounds that a civil servant should not dabble in politics, yet they forget that Charamba is the Presidential spokesman. How can a spokesperson for the President of the Republic be accused of dabbling in politics when the Presidency itself is a political office?

Yes they may have managed to silence Peter Mavhunga — a court probation officer and part-time newspaper columnist who has been living and working in Britain for the past 30 years — but they came unstuck on The Herald’s Australian based columnist, Reason Wafawarova, whom they tried to get deported from down under.

Wafawarova ended up laughing all the way to the bank after suing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that had defamed him after peddling MDC falsehoods that claimed he had been involved in the rape, murder and torture of innocent people during his days in the Ministry of Youth Development and Employment Creation.

The same characters also tried it with my colleagues Munyaradzi Huni, Reuben Barwe and Judith Makwanya and I, along with my former editor at The Herald, PD, as we were all placed on Anglo-Saxon sanctions lists in a blatant attempt at mind control and censorship but the undemocratic democrats again came unstuck for the simple reason that Zimbabwe is not Europe and Europe is not Zimbabwe.

Assuming a puppeteer can credit his mannequin for moves he originates, MDC leaders may be heroes in Whitehall and the White House but they are not heroes here.

Whose country is it anyway?

caesar.zvayi@zimpapers.co.zw