Alternatives International

International Environmental Day of Action

Juan Camilo Velásquez-Buriticá — 2012-07-01T22:31:00Z

On June 20th around 50,000 people took to the streets in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in anticipation for the ineffective outcome of the Rio+20 Summit. Additional protests sprang up in various countries as people demanded immediate solutions to the earth's environmental decay before the Rio+20 Summit began. On this day of action, people that have grown up listening to tales of unfulfilled goals made at environmental summits looked for an alternative to the failed notion of ‘green capitalism'. They were looking to radically transform the world order and the way we approach our environment.

The demonstrations on June 20th are part of an intensification of environmental demands that began several decades ago. One of the first warnings of the pervasive effects global warming was voiced as early as 1988 at the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in Toronto. At this conference, scientists and politicians recommended reducing carbon dioxide emissions 20 per cent by 2005. At the time of the conference, the CO2 level in the atmosphere was at around 355 parts per million (ppm). By 2005 the rate was at around 386ppm and by the time the Rio+20 Summit started it had risen to 396ppm. This conference remains a testament to the many empty promises made at similar gatherings.

The failure of the Rio+20 summit to truly address the issues at hand is not an isolated case. My generation, the same generation that was born when the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the first Rio Summit, was held twenty years ago, has grown up in a world where the International Community is an expert in crafting ceremonial yet empty conferences, agreements and treaties.

Our governments, the UN, and various environmental NGOs have not been able to save humanity from its own destruction mainly because they have not dared to see beyond the status quo. World leaders have tried to stop climate change and alleviate environmental pressures following the capitalist agenda that stands in direct contradiction with the environmental agenda. The capitalist society in which we live not only prides itself in individualism and over-consumption as moral compasses. It takes these values as the very essence of its existence. As such, resolutions written at summits like Rio+20 never attempt to challenge these two components of a depleting society. There has been no substantial alleviation to our environmental ailments because our leaders systematically overlook individualism and over-consumption, and in turn the capitalist agenda, as the root cause of the earth's environmental problem.

It is under this framework that our generation has been instilled to learn and use more and more buzzwords with less and less meaning. “Sustainability”, “green”, and “eco-friendly”, are amongst the many concepts that continue to portray green capitalism as a viable option when it is not. Saving the planet requires more than adopting a few so-called green policies ; it calls for a complete overhaul of the way in which we consume, and how we interact with our natural resources and each other.

As a first measure, affluent societies and nations have a duty to curtail their consumption habits ; the extent of over-consumption has reached unprecedented levels and it has started to directly infringe upon the well-being of less fortunate people. People in richer nations are consuming at the expense of their less fortunate counterparts. Thus the current disproportionate use of resources is not only important for the environmental struggle ; it is also directly tied to the struggle for social and economic justice. Of similar importance is the end to natural resource commodification, a phenomenon by which our natural resources are becoming privatized, making it harder for society to manage them ethically. When nature is privately owned it becomes impossible to control its depletion – and we leave the future of the environment in the hands of a small group.

For this reason, we need communal action as a second measure. The pervasive individualism entrenched in capitalism does not allow for compromise in the use of our resources. We live in a time where the only solution to the earth's environmental problems is to think and act collectively, but our self-centered instincts work against aligning humanity's common interests. A real solution involves a drastic transformation of our legal and economic institutions, thus fixing skewed incentives brought about by over-consumption and extreme individualism.

When the fact that an environmental summit like Rio+20 has failed is no longer “big” news, we know our efforts for environmental conservation have hit a low. But we cannot afford to become cynical and give up any hope at rescuing the environment ; it is our duty to look for alternatives to green capitalism. On June 20th we took small steps towards doing so. The Rio+20 People's Summit is an example of people reclaiming hope for environmental preservation. The People's summit grew as a space to foster alternative solutions to the crisis as it hosted a wide range of groups, including anti-capitalist, indigenous and rural workers' groups. But the People's summit was also a channel to express discontent at our leaders' failure to eliminate poverty and protect biodiversity. And this is why the organizers worked to establish June 20th as the International Environmental Day of Action.

We are constantly told to use social media and the Internet to raise awareness about the earth's environmental degradation. However, we must step back and look beyond awareness for the sake of awareness and realize that it is time to take action. Our governments tell us to use the economic and legal channels within the capitalist system to save the planet. However, it is time to drastically change the environmental discourse and seek alternatives outside of the established economic and social order. As this generation is handed down the responsibility of leading the world in the coming years, it is up to us to decide if we are committed to saving this planet or if we want to stick to the empty promise method our current leaders have perfected.

Child Prisoners in Palestine

Houda Chergui — 2012-07-01T22:29:00Z

The World Social Forum Free Palestine is taking place this year from November 28 to December 1 in Porto Allegre, Brazil. An echo of the World Social Forum's opposition to neo-liberal hegemony, Free Palestine is searching to promote the rights of the Palestinian people, and to enforce international laws. One of the many topics to be discussed is the plight of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, some of which are children.

Every year, between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are arrested by the Israeli army—some as young as eleven years old—for throwing rocks at Israeli settlers, a form of civil disobedience that originates from the first Intifada in 1987. Although most of the charges are for stone throwing, some minors are arrested for more serious offences such as membership in gang organizations or for using weapons. The Israeli army categorizes rock throwing as a serious offence that can cause injury or death. “It sounds like the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is just arresting kids, but people don't understand that these kids are very violent […] they are endangering the lives of Israelis," said Arye Shalitar, a spokesperson for the Israeli military in a Reuters interview.

The important issue is not the fact that the children are punished for their crimes, but rather the way in which they are captured, interrogated, and detained. Military law, the legislation to which officials in occupied territories prescribe, holds several inconsistencies with international or Israeli law. Minors have a separate legal system in Israeli law ; however, they are often not respected, as children are accused with adult charges in the occupied territories. The age of criminal responsibility is twelve years under the Israeli justice system, as stipulated by Israeli military order 1651, and minors under the age of fourteen can face up to a maximum of six months in prison. "The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child [...] shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time,” a fact underlined in article 37(b) of the most internationally recognized primary document protecting the rights of children, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the UN in November 1989, and ratified by Israel in 1991. Another inconsistency in military law is in its definition of a minor, in which a child reaches the age of majority at sixteen rather than eighteen, the international norm.

The most common way of arrest is by abducting the children from their homes at night. “They are captured at night, blindfolded and sent to prison, where they are interrogated for hours, cuffed by their hands and feet, and most of the time without an adult present,” says field researcher for Alternatives News, Ahmad Jaradat. Unlike in Israeli and international legislation, military law makes no reference to the presence of a parent during questioning. According to B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories' 2011 study on Palestinian child prisoners, out of 50 minors who were interviewed for the report, only two were accompanied by an adult during interrogation. The report also indicates that these minors rarely have a lawyer present during, or even after interrogation.

During the interrogation process, children are often subjected to informal questioning which could be used as a reference point for officials during real interrogations, subjecting them to two rounds of different questionings. They would occasionally be left handcuffed in a room alone for hours, until they were forced to confess, even if they did not commit the crime.

According to the charity Save the Children, over 98 percent of detained children reported some sort of abuse, verbal or physical. Most of these children are reported to be suffering from anxiety and nightmares, says the charity. There are even cases where minors are held in solitary confinement, in cells such as Cell 36 in Al Jalame prison in Northern Israel. Since 2008, NGO Defence for Children International (DCI) has gathered testaments from 426 minors that were imprisoned in the Israeli military justice system. Around 9 percent of them claim to have been held in solitary confinement, and this number rose to 22 percent in late 2011.

"If detainees believe they have been mistreated, especially in the case of minors […] it's very important that these people, or people representing them, come forward and raise these issues,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu in British news source, the Guardian. UNICEF declared that it would be supervising arrests and imprisonment of children and that it is currently in dialogue with the Israeli authorities to better protect child detainees. Despite these statements, the detainment of minors continues to be an ongoing issue, as just last year, 2301 children were taken into custody, and reports of mistreatment persist. B'Tselem featured a list urging fast change in Israel's military justice system's practices at the end of their report on the imprisonment of minors. They pressed it to set its age of minority to conform with international and Israeli norms immediately ; outlaw night arrests of children ; restrict interrogation times to daytime, with the presence of a parent ; the opportunity to consult with a lawyer, among others.

Canada held responsible for torture : Rights violations in the West

2012-07-01T22:26:00Z

In 1985, Canada signed onto the United Nations (UN) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and was one of the first countries to do so. In a report released by the UN Committee against Torture on June 1, 2012, Canada has not lived up to its obligations ; rather, the report accuses Ottawa of being “complicit” to various human rights violations, including the ill-treatment of three Arab-Canadian men held and tortured in Syria following 9/11.

A judicial inquiry headed by former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci found Canadian officials responsible for the torture of Canadian citizens abroad, made possible through the sharing of information with foreign intelligence and police agencies. Iacobucci's official report later deemed this shared information to be “inflammatory, inaccurate, and lacking investigative foundation”. (1) The UN committee has urged the Canadian government to issue an apology and compensate the three Canadians who were tortured by foreign powers.

The three torture victims—Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin—are now suing the Canadian federal government over its role in their detention abroad.

The report goes on to critique the federal government for stalling the repatriation of Canadian Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay. The Canadian Supreme Court has found Canadian officials, once again, complicit in Khadr's ill-treatment overseas. As in the previous case, the UN committee also urges the Canadian government to extend their apologies to Khadr and compensate him for his poor treatment.

Public Safety Minister Victor Toews has been heavily criticized by the UN committee for his directive to catch suspected war criminals by posting their names and faces online. Toews' recent move to allow the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to use information obtained through torture, whenever it deems public safety to be at risk, is also seen as highly problematic, and, moreover, contradictory to the UN Convention against Torture. The Convention requires Canada, and other participating states, to take effective measures to prevent torture within their borders.

The report also goes on to urge the Canadian government to create a policy that plainly prohibits the transfer of prisoners to countries where there are “substantial grounds” to suspect a risk of torture.

If Canada is to conform with basic UN standards, a severe examination of the Canadian prison system is also necessary. The UN report calls for Canada to “clamp down on overcrowding, reduce institutional violence and in-custody deaths, and add more mental health treatment centres” for prisoners with serious mental health issues. To this day, it is not uncommon to hold mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement, often further exacerbating their conditions. Overcrowding in federal penitentiaries has also risen to an all-time high : “We've actually seen the daily count exceed 15,000 offenders for the first time in Canadian history,” says Howard Sapers, Canada's correctional investigator.

The Canadian government's reaction to such criticism has been undeniably negative. “In times when there are serious concerns regarding human rights violations across the world, it is disappointing that the UN would spend time decrying Canada,” said Julie Carmichael, a spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Toews. “Canada is a nation of laws and the actions of our government uphold the highest standards in the protection of human rights.”

In an even more alarming move, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Larry Miller is now urging the Canadian government to rethink their position in the UN. “The United Nations is an organization that was designed to work collectively to solve the major problems facing the world,” said Miller. “If this is the type of action that the UN will be taking then I think that it is high time that we review our participation in the United Nations.”

Such a conception of the UN and its duties is perhaps the most problematic aspect of Canada's reaction to the aforementioned criticism. The UN must not only criticize, condemn, and hold responsible those countries with the most blatant of human rights violations ; the West is not unsusceptible to the same form of criticism, despite the reaction of the Canadian government. Rather, if we are to hold ourselves in such high regard, we should also hold ourselves responsible for our missteps, mistakes, and downright offenses.

Such an attitude on the part of the Canadian government has, undoubtedly, strained relations between Ottawa and the UN panel. Claudio Grossman, head of the UN Committee against Torture, has most succinctly replied to the Canadian government by simply saying “we need to treat everybody in the same way.” The UN committee has asked Canada to respond by means of an official report by June 2013. In the meantime, the Canadian government has one year to enact the more-than-20 reforms suggested by the UN report.

Ezat Mossallanejad, a policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture, welcomes UN oversight and criticism. “[It is] extremely important that we subject ourselves to the same checks that apply elsewhere,” Mr. Mossallanejad said.

Nevertheless, the Canadian government's overwhelmingly negative reception to the UN committee does not bode well for the next UN panel deadline. One week following the release of the UN report, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said that Canada has no intention of withdrawing from the UN, but will continue to voice its concerns over, what the Canadian government deems, its questionable actions.

In this instance, however, the concerns of the Canadian government are questionable, at best, and downright dismissive and irresponsible, at worst.

Canada's record on preventing and punishing torture and ill-treatment should not go unquestioned. We must take our commitment against torture seriously, if others are to do the same.

Crusade 2.0 : A Book Review

Lola Duffort — 2012-07-01T22:24:00Z

There is little extensive Western journalism or academic work done on Islamophobia, and certainly no authoritative text on the matter, which is perhaps why John Feffer's project in Crusade 2.0 : The West's Resurgent War on Islam is such an ambitious one.

Feffer attempts, in under two hundred pages, to cover nearly a thousand years of antipathy between Europe and the Middle East, the geopolitical reasons for and the consequences of Islamophobia in both Europe and the United States today, and, finally, to outline concrete solutions. While Crusade may try to do too much in too little space, it nonetheless provides readers with more than a few invaluable insights into the implications of Islamophobia, particularly in the United States, but also in Europe.

Feffer's treatment of election-year Islamophobia in the United States is his most complete narrative, as it offers readers an understanding of why and how Islamophobia has been carefully cultivated in an anxious American public toward specific policy goals. On Feffer's account, Islamophobia has recently served two primary political purposes in the United States. First, George W. Bush warned of the threat of “Islamofascism”—a term coined in the 90s, and reintroduced into the public discourse by Bush in 2005—to the American way of life, giving the Bush administration a renewed justification for a war with dwindling domestic support. With “Saddam Hussein gone and the 9/11 attacks retreating into memory”, Feffer argues that the Bush administration attempted to develop a political climate which distracted Americans from the “soldiers lost, money spent, civil liberties abridged, and critical issues […] ignored”.

Second, Islamophobia has allowed the political right in America to channel racist anxieties about Obama's election as the first black American president into the “politically correct” fear that Obama is a Muslim, or, at the very least, has Islamist sympathies. In a recent survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, more than one in six Americans believe that Obama is Muslim, while only one in four believe that Obama is Protestant (Obama was officially baptized in the United Church of Christ). These false beliefs are perpetuated by a misinformation campaign spearheaded by organizations such as the Clarion Fund, a pro-Israeli organization connected to John McCain's presidential campaign, which “decided to distribute the DVD [Obsession : Radical Islam's War with the West] in swing states prior to the 2008 election”. This video implies that politicians like Obama would please Osama bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda. Ironically, Obama would oversee the assassination of Osama bin Laden three years later.

Feffer proposes three remedies to Crusade 2.0. First, he discusses how the term ‘Judeo-Christian'—which emerged “from the theological debates in the late nineteenth century as a way of incorporating and belittling through hyphenation the Jewish contributions to Christian civilization”—suggests that so-called ‘Judeo-Christian values' are not shared by Muslims. Feffer suggests abandoning this ‘Judeo-Christian' construct altogether, or developing a new term to refer to the Abrahamic religions (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) that does not misleadingly exclude the latter. The second remedy to Islamophobia that Feffer recommends is ending Israel's practice of settling occupied Palestinian territories, since he believes that true reconciliation between the West and the Islamic world can only occur if Israel participates. Finally, Feffer proposes that the European Union accepts Turkey's application for membership, which will help Europe come to terms with the fact that it is not a unitary culture, but rather a multicultural center of many religions and ways of life.

However, Feffer's last two recommendations seem unlikely remedies to Islamophobia, since both the Palestinian occupation and Europe's insistence that it is a unitary culture are a direct result of the West's distrust of Islam. Only once this distrust subsides will the West be prepared to embrace the world's second-largest religion ; as such, it seems necessary for comprehensive solutions to Crusade 2.0 not to presume that Islamophobia is on the decline.

Why are Philippine Funds Being Used to Bail out Irresponsible European Banks ?

Walden Bello — 2012-07-01T22:18:00Z

The Philippine government's decision to extend a $1 billion loan to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to supplement the Fund's war chest of $456 billion to contain the economic crisis in Europe has been justified as assistance to countries in dire need of financial help.

It will do no such thing.

The IMF funds may be nominally earmarked for Greece, Spain, or Ireland, but they will actually flow to the big banks that made loans to these countries.

A Supply-Driven Crisis

As in the United States, the financial crisis in Europe is a supply-driven-crisis, as the big European banks sought high-profit, quick return substitutes like real estate lending and speculation in financial derivatives for industrial and agricultural investment. German and French private banks hold some 70 per cent of Greece's $400 billion debt. German banks were great buyers of the toxic subprime assets from US financial institutions, and they applied the same lack of discrimination to buying Greek government bonds. For their part, even as the financial crisis unfolded, French banks, according to the Bank of International Settlements, increased their lending to Greece by 23 per cent, to Spain by 11 per cent, and to Portugal by 26 per cent.

Indeed, in their drive to raise more and more profits from lending to governments, local banks, and real estate developers, Europe's banks poured $2.5 trillion into Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and Spain. It is said that these countries' membership in the euro deceived the banks into thinking that their loans were safe since they were implicitly backed with the economic power of the Eurozone's most powerful economies, meaning Germany and France. Not only was this a lame excuse for not looking into a debtor's financial health, which every bank is obligated to do. More likely, a country's membership in the euro provided the much-needed justification for unleashing the tremendous surplus funds the banks possessed that would create no profits by simply lying in the banks' vaults.

Rescuing the Banks

The so-called rescue funds are pretty much like the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) that injected money into the United States' top financial institutions to keep them from crashing into bankruptcy in 2008. Like TARP, the European bailout funds are public monies being used to bail out private banks that made bad bets in the global casino. TARP, however, was clearly a bailout of the banks, whereas the European rescue funds are disguising a bailout of the banks as a bailout of countries.

The European rescue program is, in this sense, also very similar to the funds assembled by the IMF during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. Practically all of these funds went to pay off foreign creditors and hardly anything went to ease the sufferings of people whose economies collapsed when the investors deserted them. Many creditors got a large part of their money back, but nothing was allocated to assist the estimated 20 million Indonesians and one million Thais who dropped below the poverty line as a result of the harsh stabilization programs the IMF demanded in exchange for the bailout funds.

The European bailout funds are also like the structural adjustment loans extended to the Philippines in the 1980's during the depths of the country's foreign debt crisis. They went to rescuing Citibank and other foreign creditors while Filipinos were left not only with the task of paying off the World Bank and the IMF but also undertaking the painful measures of budgetary cutbacks, trade liberalization, deregulation, and privatization that dislocated the country's economy irreversibly. One of the IMF conditions for the rescue loans for international private banks was Automatic Appropriations Law, which mandated that servicing the debt to these creditors would have priority allocation in budgetary expenditures. In the last few years, we have allocated 20-25 per cent of the national budget to debt servicing.

Banks Escape, People Pay

While the big banks will be able to get a significant part of their irresponsible investments back, as a result of the generosity of countries like the Philippines, it will be the people of Spain, Greece, Ireland, and other bankrupt European countries that will be left with the bag, just as Asians and Filipinos were the ones who had to clean up the mess that their foreign creditors and domestic economic elites left behind after the Asian financial crisis.

From our bitter experience, we can relate to the frustration of the Spanish economist who, upon hearing of the $125 billion “rescue” deal that would put the enormous burdens of repayment on Spanish taxpayers in the dreary years to come, told the New York Times, “Ultimately, those who lent to our financial system were the banks and insurance companies of Northern Europe, which should bear the consequences of these decisions.” Great principle, but it won't be followed.

In order to repay the EU-IMF bailout loan, the Greek government agreed to a draconian program that increased the value-added tax to 23 percent, raised the retirement age to 65 for both men and women, made deep cuts in pensions and public sector wages, and eliminated practices promoting job security. Years of pain and stagnation are the only future Greeks can look forward to.

As for Ireland, in return for an 85 million euro loan to repay European banks, it accepted what the New York Times characterized as the “toughest austerity program in Europe,” involving “the loss of about 25,000 public-sector jobs, equivalent to 10 percent of the government work force, as well as a four-year, $20 billion program of tax increases and spending cuts like sharp reductions in state pensions and minimum wage.” The program, being essentially, as in Greece and Spain, a draconian effort to rip off resources to pay off the banks, will end up choking growth for years to come, with the IMF itself warning the program would risk a "pernicious cycle of rising unemployment, higher arrears and loan losses.”

Moral Hazard

There is a term for the consequences of bank bailout programs : “moral hazard.” By generating the expectation that they will be rescued whenever their debtors run into trouble serving their debts, bailout programs encourage irresponsible lending. The Eurozone governments-IMF rescue operations can only encourage more irresponsible lending in the future.

There are a number of other reasons others have cited why the $1 billion credit to the IMF is a bad idea. It could be better used being lent to the national government to pay off our $62.9 billion foreign debt or plugging the budgetary shortfalls for education, health, and infrastructure. It should be given only if the IMF agreed to changes in its governance structure to give countries like the Philippines larger quotas and greater voting power and a larger say in policy. But the main reason is plain, simple, and commonsensical : our government should not be in the business of bailing out irresponsible European banks.

Inq.net columnist Walden Bello is also the representative of Akbayan in the House of Representatives.

(This article appears in the author's column on Inq.net)

Japanese PM Noda Orders Restart of Nuclear Reactors

Jillian Ward — 2012-07-01T22:06:00Z

On June 8th Japanese Prime Minister Yohishiko Noda made a televised appeal for two nuclear reactors of the Ohi nuclear plant to be reopened in order to maintain the country's economic vitality and national security.

All 54 of the country's nuclear reactors were deactivated following the Fukushima crisis of March 2011, but Noda now insists that restarting the reactors is both imperative and safe. The reactors are deemed necessary for the maintenance of the country's overall economy, especially during the traditional peak in energy use during the hot summer months. Reactors at the Ohi plant in the central Fukui prefecture are expected to be restarted on July 1st.

The Prime Minister's announcement has been met with widespread public discontent. On June 29th, about 10,000 protestors gathered outside Noda's office. Although public approval is not needed to restart the reactors, Oda's uncharacteristic television appearance was no doubt intended to gain popular support. During the ten-minute speech, he asked the Japanese people to harness their fear in the face of disaster in order to maintain their standard of living. Japanese attitudes towards nuclear energy, however, remain hardened since the meltdowns at the Fukushima power plant, which saw the worst nuclear crisis since the Chernobyl disaster. When Japan's last reactor was turned off in May, thousands took to the streets in celebration. Their victory, however, has been short-lived.

Public concerns are well founded ; Japan is extremely prone to earthquakes and security improvements in nuclear plants remain hazy. A recent investigation has shown there is a 70% chance of a magnitude-7 earthquake striking the Tokyo metropolitan area within the next four years, and a 98% chance over the next thirty years. The earthquake in March 2011 that caused the Fukushima crisis was a magnitude-9. Safety improvements also remain inadequate due to conflicts between the government and the nation's nuclear utilities over which safety enhancements should be implemented first - and how quickly. In the best scenario, security updates could take until 2015. Security improvements are constricted by the state-dependent nature of the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency, which currently lies within the trade ministry. Opposition parties fear that Noda could use the agency as cover in the official re-opening of the reactors. The creation of the agency has thus been slow due to requests to make it more independent than originally proposed. Demands include legal guarantees and independence in staffing, budget and regulatory powers.

Before announcing the re-opening of the Ohi plant, the Prime Minister also met with the minister of economy, the minister in charge of the nuclear accident at Fukushima, and the chief cabinet secretary. The authorization of the local governor - the only one remaining in order to secure the re-start of the reactors - was obtained in mid-June. The Governor of the Fukui prefecture, Kazumasa Nishikawa, agreed to re-open the plant because, as he told reporters, he was both ‘assured of the government's safety efforts' and is determined to ‘help stabilise livelihoods and industry'.

The unanticipated shutdown of Japan's nuclear power plants has indeed caused an energy shortage and the country's largest trade deficit in three decades. So far, Japan's energy demand has been met by imports of fossil fuels and other energy sources. According to Noda, however this import solution is no longer sustainable due to the energy demands of a sweltering summer. High-profile politician Toru Hasimoto, mayor of Osaka, says he supports turning on the reactors for the summer months only.

Mr Noda, on the other hand, not only sees the opening of the reactors as crucial for the summer, but for the long-term economic well-being of Japan. The re-opening of power plants would help stimulate employment, large corporations, and businesses. Yukio Edano, spokesman for former Prime Minister Naoto Kan, now endorses re-opening the plants due to energy shortages suffered by Japan's major corporations. If the reactors were left offline, warns Edano, operations would have to be taken offshore, leaving tens of thousands of Japanese workers unemployed.

However, the economic consequences of a restart are not one-sided. Re-opening the plants creates the risk of another radiation leak and even deeper economic difficulties. According to Japan's welfare ministry, around 20% of Fukushima's earthquake survivors are either still unemployed or have become discouraged workers. Additionally, both Toshiba and Sony blame their dramatic declines in profits on disruptions caused by the earthquake, as well as the euro zone crisis and unfavourable exchange rates. The re-opening of the plants is therefore a risky investment given the country's economic and environmental climate.

Furthermore, the announcement has already damaged a growing tourism industry. Prior to the announcement, Ohi was an emerging tourist hot-spot. Since Mr Noda's formal announcement, the summer reservations at one inn close to the Ohi plant are at one-tenth of their regular levels.

According to a recent poll by Jiji news agency, just under half of the Japanese population is against the move to restart the Ohi reactors. Kansai, the large urban region traditionally fueled by Ohi, has been warned of energy shortages during the summer. If the reactors are left offline and the region survives the hot months without blackouts, the public will see that nuclear and business lobby threats have been unfounded. Noda has excellent timing. If he can convince the Japanese public of the need for these two reactors, perhaps his sensitive campaign to turn on other reactors will progress smoothly. Japan's nuclear reactors will, in this way, be a testament to the strength of an aggressive government - or the resilience of the public.

An Overview of Syria's Current Human Rights Violations

Jacob Dobias — 2012-07-01T22:03:00Z

The conflict, and anti-regime attitude in Syria has been ongoing since the beginning of the current President's term. President Bashar al-Assad has been in power since the political demise of his father, Hafez, who gained power through a military coup in 1970. When Bashar came to power in 2000, there was a brief period of liberalization. However, any progress quickly declined. Free speech was severely controlled and limited and economic policies shifted to benefit the upper classes and elites.

Syria's religious groups are largely composed of a Sunni majority, with smaller groups of Christian, Druze, and Yezidi religious communities. President al-Assad belongs to another religious group, that of the Shia heterodox sect known as the Alawites, who are the focus of many of Mr. Assad's most beneficial economic policies. Though religion has not been the driving force behind this conflict, its role and connection to Assad cannot be denied.

Since March 2011 the Syrian government has been violently suppressing a popular pro-democratic uprising initiated by its own people. The beginning of pro-democracy protests and marches saw the arrest and torture of a group of teenagers who painted anti-regime slogans on their school's walls in the southern Syrian city of Deraa. At a march showing their disapproval of the mishandling of the group of teenagers, security forces opened fire on the crowd, resulting in the death of four innocent civilians. Following this event, a funeral was held for those who were killed at the march, where authorities again opened fire at civilians, killing another person. As the conflict between anti-regime peoples and current government has dragged on, violence has increased drastically. As of March 2011 there have been approximately 10,000 to 13,000 casualties, the exact number being difficult to verify independently.

Since the beginning of the conflict, massive human rights abuses have been occurring across Syria, sparing no one. For example, Syrian governmental soldiers have been indiscriminately shooting at men, women and children fleeing from Syria. In mid-June, Syrian refugees crossing the border in the company of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were subjected to machine gun and sniper fire, wounding eleven and killing three civilians. Although this is an isolated example, it appears to be a reoccurrence on most borders. There have also been cases of people being subjected to violence perpetuated by the Syrian army while fleeing to Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. A Syrian army defector told Human Rights Watch that soldiers were ordered to shoot at anybody attempting to leave or enter Syria, without passing through an official border post.

However, crossing unofficial borders has become a necessity, as many refugees are being turned away at the Syrian borders for no official reason. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Syria has promised to uphold as a signatory, states that any person is entitled to exit their country if need be.

Another severe human rights violation perpetrated by Assad's regime is the targeting of children. A recently released UN report lists fifty-two countries whose government forces and armed groups recruit, kill or sexually abuse children in armed conflicts. Syria is now included on this list, with the report stating that children as young as nine years old have been the victims of numerous malicious acts, such as killing and maiming.

The report quotes multiple members of the Syrian armed forces who say they have either been witness to, or participated in, events that have resulted in several children getting killed or severely wounded. For example, in the province of Idlib, which has been very heavily affected by the conflict, there were reportedly several dozen boys and girls between the ages of eight and thirteen who were taken from their homes and used as human shields. This has warranted severe criticisms from the international community and has bolstered national support for rebels such as the FSA.

United Nations monitors have also observed Syrian helicopters firing on rebels north of Homs, where many ordinary civilians still live. The regime has turned to using helicopters with artillery and mortar shells after its ground troops suffered major losses in previous conflicts. The Syrian regime has taken few, if any, procedures to prevent needless casualties.

These actions by the Syrian government have resulted in international condemnation. Since the conflict, Syria has been heavily sanctioned by the Arab League, the US and the EU, affecting Syria's two major sources of revenue : tourism and oil exportation. Syria's economy has decreased by two percent since 2011, and unemployment is high. Additionally, basic services have been interrupted in conflict-affected areas. Russia and China have vetoed the Security Council's resolutions that threatened sanctions against Syria, and Russia refused to support moves that would allow for foreign intervention.

Syria's most recent condemnation has come from one of its neighbours and strongest allies. On June 26th, Turkey warned Syria to distance itself from its shared border or risk an armed response. This is a strong reaction to the Turkish military plane that was attacked and taken down a week ago by the Damascus regime.

Although NATO supports Turkey's condemnation of the Syrian regime, the organization has stopped short of offering military support. Turkey has repeatedly called for Assad to step down, and their once strong political relationship has been dissolving steadily since the beginning of the uprising.
A declaration of civil war appears to be on the horizon, with neither the rebels nor the government conceding to demands of the international community or each other. With the increasing violent nature of the conflict, many more casualties and human rights violations are sure to occur. Attempts by many notable mediators, such as Kofi Annan, have resulted only in slowing down the conflict, but not fully halting it. The international community has been trying their best to prevent Syria from plunging into civil war, but their efforts might be for nothing, as neither side has complied with the peace plan negotiated by the UN and the Arab League envoy. The future of Syria appears to be in decline, and the end of serious human rights violations, at the moment, appears to be nowhere in sight.

Promoting Organic Agriculture in Africa : The Need to Lead by Example

Geneviève Lavoie-Mathieu — 2012-07-01T21:57:00Z

“Organic agriculture can offer an impressive array of food security, economic, environmental, and health benefits for developing countries, including in Africa,” declared Petko Draganov, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) deputy secretary-general last May at the second annual African Organic Conference.

The conference's theme, "Mainstreaming Organic Agriculture in the African Development Agenda", sought to emphasize the importance of food security, sustainable agriculture, and a transition towards a ‘green' economy according to Draganov.

The three hundred conference participants urged governments of Africa to include organic agriculture as a core element in their policies and programs.
Paradoxically, there are currently more organic farms (certified and non-certified) in Africa than in any other continent. At the same time it has been proven that conventional agriculture as practiced in most of the Americas and Europe is not sustainable, characterized by its emphasis on productivity and not on health, environmental and social benefits.

Knowing that the main markets for organic products are in Europe and North America, would an increased production in Africa mean that all exports are leaving with little or no benefits for small-scale farmers ? Is the emphasis on the 'green economy', just another excuse for western organizations not to turn to 'green solutions' but rather to impose their view of sustainable development on the Global South ?

Keeping science away from African nations ?

Wellesley College professor Robert Paarlberg,argues that Western donors, NGOs and governments have been advocating for the use of costly organic farming techniques as the alternative to chemical fertilizer use.

In his book Starved for Science : How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa, he argues that while only one percent of America and four percent in Europe is being farmed organically, African nations are told they should farm organically.

Bill Gates is another advocate of biotech in Africa as a means to increase food security. He said that in order to “develop crops that can grow in a drought ; that can survive in a flood ; that can resist pests and disease… [w]e need higher yields on the same land in harsher weather. And we will never get it without a continuous and urgent science-based search to increase productivity”.

On the opposite side, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) concluded after four years of research that genetically modified crops do not help small-scale farmers, and that to reduce hunger, investment is needed in rural infrastructure (roads, markets, irrigation development, rural schools and colleges).

The IAASTD also found that sustainable agricultural development "will require investment in systems such as organic agriculture, which build on traditional knowledge and give traditional farmers the tools they need to thrive without becoming dependent on expensive external inputs".

Organic agriculture makes sense in African nations, argues Manjo Smith of the IFOAM because it builds on available resources. In fact, the continent of Africa holds around sixty percent of the world's available and unexploited cropland, numerous indigenous plant varieties, and proven indigenous knowledge. Farmers often have limited use of agrochemicals.

The UN goes further by arguing that African nations have a certain comparative advantage in organic agriculture, as they possess relatively abundant labour and would save on cost using relatively fewer agrochemicals in production.

Marketing as the main obstacle

One of the conference's main conclusions was that while major markets for organic products are growing at rates of between ten and twenty percent organic agriculture is not given enough credit and the organic market is mostly restricted to North America and Europe, which constitutes an enormously untapped potential.

Roughly eighty percent of organic producers (a significant proportion of them women) are in developing countries, while ninety-seven percent of sales revenue for organic products are generated in industrialized countries, according to UNEP.

To address this, participants at the Lusaka conference ''requested [that] the European Union and other actors of the global trade partners to take all possible steps to facilitate the participation of Africa in global organic markets."

Another conclusion of the conference was that there is an urgent need for African governments to advocate for the benefits of producing organic as an opportunity for value added production to increase income from sales, locally and abroad. Organic agriculture methods such as crop diversification, increased crops, and soil fertility management would be especially well suited for areas where there is low soil fertility and erosion. In western Kenya, for example, bean output has increased by 158 percent using organic agriculture.

This is also valuable in the rest of the world, including North America and Europe. In the United States alone, for example, the damage to farmland, waterways, infrastructure and health because of soil erosion was estimated to cost over fifty billion dollars a year.

Increasing research and access to markets

Rather than promoting organic agriculture solely as a developmental path in Africa, a vast effort should be made to promote better agricultural practices, including organic agriculture worldwide, especially in times of climate change, a global economic crisis, water scarcity and increased soil erosion. Organic agriculture represents rural jobs, and offers a vast array of environmental and health benefits, both for customers and producers. But in order to achieve the "mainstreaming of organic agriculture'' increased access to markets, an increase in research focused on organic agriculture technologies and training for farmers is desperately needed.

The Politics of Football

Michael Reford — 2012-07-01T21:00:00Z

It is that time again : Every four years fans around the world get to enjoy the European Championship. Whether in domestic leagues or at the international level, politics seem to be omnipresent in European football. The most important question that arises from this is : why football ?

With every major tournament, the eyes of the world fall upon the host nations as any relevant issue, be it sports related or not, becomes intensely scrutinized. As such, racism has been at the centre of discussions about Euro 2012. This is a common issue in football, not only in Europe but around the world. It is simple to blame some Ultra groups that have racist tendencies but the problem stems from a larger issue. The immigration question has become central in mainstream European politics and it has been manifesting itself in football stadiums from both Poland and Ukraine all the way to the UK's Premier League —one of the most prestigious and popular football leagues in the world.

The pre-tournament ‘Stadiums of Hate', an inflammatory, poorly presented documentary on Polish and Ukrainian culture within stadiums, comes to mind. Addressing the common problem of racism — not new in Eastern European countries — it presents specific Ultra groups displaying anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi symbols in stadiums. Taking this evidence and relating it on a wider scale to the Polish and Ukrainian public makes it appear as if there is approval of racist behaviours and involvement on a much wider scale. But there is a distinction between racism and anti-immigration policy that must be made clear. And minority with a unique culture is not an accurate representation of the wider population.

In another instance, a quarterfinal match between Germany and Greece brought together two nations in the midst of a pan-European debt crisis. What occurred on the field seemed to be an emulation of what has been happening to the Greek people. The Greeks were left to salvage a few ounces of pride from kick-off as they were at the mercy of a skilled German side. Angela Merkel was present at what was dubbed “the bailout match” . As a major creditor, Merkel has been pushing for repayment and austerity in Greece . Her attendance came with political connotations as to show a presence over the Greek counterparts. Jeers, whistles and chants directed at Merkel brought the political situation between both countries to the forefront. With the ongoing debt crisis overshadowing the match, Germany's win was politically symbolic.

During a group stage match between Poland and Russia, past and current political tensions came to light. Outside the stadium, small demonstrations took place accusing Russia of the murder of Lech Kaczyński who died in a plane crash en route to a memorial service for the Katyn Massacre in western Russia. Many Poles are wary of Russian involvement in the death of their head of state as investigations on both sides gave different conclusions. Violent clashes on the streets of Warsaw exposed Cold War era tensions as Russian fans marched down the main street waving flags in what was interpreted as a show of Russian nationalism.

But the intersection of football and politics does not only happen during the European Cup. On the domestic league level, one can look to Spain. The Spanish cup final pitted Athletic Bilbao against Barcelona at a predetermined neutral ground in Madrid. The result was a rude welcome by right-wing nationalist groups marching for “Spanish unity”. The situation was exacerbated by comments made by politicians on both sides regarding potential whistling of the Spanish anthem. After all of the political build up, one could forget that a cup final was indeed occurring. At the end of a one sided game, the Barcelona captain, Carles Puyol, was seen celebrating by hoisting both Catalan and Basque flags in what can be interpreted as a show of solidarity and support for two persecuted provinces. The tension from General Franco's cultural oppression in these two provinces still endures and was brought to light in a footballing context.

Football has also sparked political issues with much wider international implications. After the death of Tito, Serb and Croat nationalist sentiments had been steadily growing and were at an all-time high when a match was to be played between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade in Zagreb in May 1990. The result was a riot in the stadium that pitted Dinamo's Ultras, the Bad Blue Boys against another equally nationalistic Ultra group, Red Star's Delije. Serb policemen were brought in to control the situation but when they beat a fan on the pitch, Zvonomir Boban, a Zagreb player unleashed a kick on the policeman in defence of the fan. The riot at Maksimir stadium and the symbolic kick became a flashpoint for the civil war that was to follow while Boban became a symbol of Croat nationalism. On that fateful day, Red Star's Delije were led by Zeliko “Arkan” Raznatovic who would later form a Serb paramilitary group known as Arkan's Tigers made up of Delije members.

Explosions of conflicting ideas have a history of occurring within the football world but there have some positive instances in which the futures of nations are affected by a dramatic win. Leading up to France's 1998 World Cup, inflammatory comments made by far-right political leader Jean-Marie Le Pen about the ethnicities of French national players — and whether the players were truly French — fuelled built up tension throughout a country whose present and future was rooted in multiculturalism. Key players of foreign descent such as Zidane, Thuram, and Desailly were instrumental in the French victory and what followed was a mending of pre-tournament social and cultural division within France. Nationalistic sentiment engulfed the nation that had been struggling to come to terms with a new multiethnic and multicultural identity.

Football is an international game and with this comes international attention, which players, fan groups, or ultras can use to their advantage. FIFA and UEFA have strict measures banning political gestures and displays in order to avoid potential problems but despite this, European politics still manages to seep into the game on the professional level.

The explanation for why politics are involved in football can be perhaps explained by George Orwell's interpretation of competitive sport : “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words : it is war minus the shooting.”

What sports and politics seem to have in common is the passion and the struggle to win, the emotion of representing an ideal and the bond forged through victory or defeat. It is no wonder that politics manifests itself in such a setting. It is a combination of the excitement of sport and conflict, an extension of ideals, a representation of culture, a battle on the pitch and in the stands, and a microcosm of current social struggles and political conflict.