Our Place in the World

676. On African Crested Rat and Other Mammals With Toxic Punch

2012-02-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

African Crested Rat

By Natalie Angier, The New York Times, January 30, 2012

What’s black andwhite, with a skunkish look to its cover,

And from bark wrests such bite it makes lions fall over?

Meet the African crested rat, or Lophiomys imhausi, a creature solarge, flamboyantly furred and thickly helmeted it hardly seems a member of theinternational rat consortium. Yet it is indeed a rat, a deadly dirty rat, itssuperspecialized pelt permeated with potent toxins harvested from trees.

As a recent report in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society Bmakes clear, the crested rat offers one of the most extreme cases of a survivalstrategy rare among mammals: deterring predators with chemical weapons.

Venoms and repellents are hardly rare in nature: Many insects, frogs,snakes, jellyfish and other phyletic characters usethem with abandon. But mammals generally rely, for defense or offense, onteeth, claws, muscles, keen senses or quick wits.

Every so often, however, a mammalian lineage discovers the wonders ofchemistry, of nature’s burbling beakers and tubes. And somewhere in thedistance a mad cackle sounds.

Skunks and zorilles mimic the sulfurous, anoxic stink of a swamp. Themale duck-billed platypus infuses its heel spurs with a cobralike poison. Thehedgehog declares: Don’t quite get the point of my spines? Allow me to sharpentheir sting with a daub of venom I just chewed off the back of a Bufo toad.

Other mammals chemically gird themselves against smaller foes:Capuchin monkeys ward off mosquitoes and ticks with extracts gathered from millipedesand ants, while black-tailed deer rub themselves liberally with potentantimicrobial secretions produced by glands in their hooves. According toWilliam Wood, a chemistry professor at Humboldt State University in California,these secretions have been shown to be effective against a broad array ofmicro-organisms, including acne bacteria and athlete’s-foot fungus, which couldexplain why teenage deer are especially diligent with the hoof-rubbing routineright before the annual deer prom.

For each newly identified instance of a chemical fix, researchers seekto identify its benefits, drawbacks and evolutionary back story, and to compareit with other known cases of chemical arms. Distinctive themes have emerged.

For example, whereas poisonous insects tend to advertise theirunpalatability in bright colors like red, orange and yellow — the better towarn off their major predators, the diurnal, keen-eyed birds — most mammals andtheir mammalian predators are nocturnal or crepuscular, dawn and duskular. Coloris wasted on them, but strong contrast between dark and light is not.

This is why skunks, zorilles (also known as polecats) and the Africancrested rat have independently converged on a similar pelage theme of blackagainst white. The pattern is unmistakable in very low light, and its messageis too: You’ve seen me. I’m noxious. Now buzz off.

In their fetchingly titled paper, “A Poisonous Surprise Under the Coat of the African CrestedRat,” Jonathan Kingdon and Fritz Vollrath of Oxford University andtheir colleagues described the complex of traits that give rise to the rodent’srottenness.

The researchers determined that the rat spends many hours gnawing onthe bark and roots of the Acokanthera tree, from which it extracts the samecurare-type heart toxin that African hunters have traditionally used to killelephants. The rat then slavers the toxic masticant onto tracts of specializedhairs running along its flank.

Those hairs, when observed under a scanning electron microscope, lookvery different from ordinary fur, Dr. Vollrath said. Each outer shaft is stiffand full of holes — like a dead cactus, he said — and inside are a series oflong, fluffy microfibers. The researchers showed that the applied toxin seepsthrough the outer holes of the hairs and is wicked up and stored by the fibers,lending the rat twinned flank strips of doom.

One little nip is all it would take to sicken or even kill a predator,and the crested rat is well equipped to endure exploratory bites, Dr. Vollrathsaid: Its hide is unusually thick, and its head is helmeted like a turtle’s.Whether through trial and error or by following an enlightened elder’s example,Africa’s many carnivores give the rat a wide berth.

So, too, doLophiomys researchers. “Jonathan is a highly enterprising researcher, and henormally eats every animal he studies,” Dr. Vollrath said of his colleague.“But he admitted he would rather not eat this one.”

The researchersdon’t yet know why the rat is itself immune to the toxin, or how its fate cameto be bound up with the Acokanthera tree. Dr. Vollrath looks to basic ratnature for ideas.

“The rat eats a lot of things that other animals won’t,” he said. “Ifit eats something disgusting, it tries to spit it out, clean it off, using itsskin as a napkin.”

If an early crested rat, while sampling and gagging on a toxic tree,incidentally end up protected against predation, well, evolution has a way ofturning a contingency into a necessity. The crested rat is now anatomically andbehaviorally dependent on tree toxin for protection, and should Acokanthera goextinct, its little chiseler would soon follow.

In contrast to the crested rat, skunks synthesize their toxins fromscratch, yet they, too, have taken chemical defense to a highly derived, almostmannered extreme. Skunks stand alone in mammaldom, and though they once wereconsidered a kind of weasel, the world’s 10 or so species have recently beenassigned a family plaque of their own, the Mephitidae, from the Latin for “badodor.”

Through anal scent glands just inside the rectum at the base of thetail, skunks generate an extreme version of the familiar spray with whichcarnivores mark their territory, wildly accentuating the chemical componentsthat we and most other mammals judge to be very bad news.

At the heart of skunk spray is a thiol, the signature of nastyenvironments high in lethal hydrogen sulfide and low in oxygen — places likemines, swamps, and oil and gas wells. “Our nose is able to detect thiols atextremely low levels, parts per billion,” Dr. Wood said. “We needed to stayaway from areas with low oxygen, where we could die.”

Skunks, he added, “have come along and capitalized on this.”

Capitalized and canonized — or maybe cannonized. The skunk’s scentglands have evolved into structures that look like swollen nipples, each ableto swivel independently of the other to take perfect aim, and to perfectlycalibrated effect (as can be seen in spectacular video on the PBS program“Nature”).

To deter a predator chasing behind at an unknown distance, the skunkgoes for the atomized mist effect; if the harasser is within view, the skunkmay choose a straight stream to the face.

Skunks are confident in their repellent prowess, but nowadays theirswagger can prove fatal. Researchers suggest that one reason skunks constitutea large proportion of roadkill is that they see cars as another predator inneed of a lesson: Come ahead, pal, I’ll just stand here and spray.

A good defense means never taking offense. Researchers have beenimpressed by the ardor with which monkeys in the field prospect for novel formsof insect repellent, and their willingness to withstand extremely irritatingchemicals for the sake of rebuffing the bloodsuckers that plague them.

“Capuchin monkeys are notoriously generalist and destructive in theirsampling,” said Jessica Lynch Alfaro, the associate director of the Institutefor Society and Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Theybreak everything open, and you have to watch out or they’ll drop branches onyour head.”

Every so often, they come upon a product that looks or smellspromising, at which point they crack it open and start anointing themselves.They tear up chili peppers to release the capsaicin, rip apart millipedes toprocure a few droplets of searing benzoquinones.

If they find a nest of carpenter ants, pay dirt! The monkeys plop downon top and roll every which way, to soak up the ants’ formidable formic acidsupply.

Such treatments are clearly painful. “Capuchin monkeys get veryagitated when they’re anointing themselves,” said Dr. Lynch Alfaro, who withcolleagues recently reviewed capuchin anointing behavior for The American Journal of Primatology. “But they’rekeeping off parasites, and they seem to have a high threshold for pain.”

Besides, it’s not all pain and suffering. Anointing is a supremelysocial affair, and one rubbing monkey soon attracts others.

“Theyget into such a frenzy that the social order breaks down; everyone is anointingwith everyone else,” Dr. Lynch Alfaro said. “It’s like a big, wild party.” Theymay be black and blue, but the magic potion is spread all over.

675. Jonathan Idema: Child of U.S. Imperialism Dies

2012-01-31T19:53:00.000-08:00

By Douglas Martin, The New York Times, January 29, 2012

Jonathan K. Idema in Kabul, Afghanistan,
in 2004 (credit, Ahmad Massood, Reuters)

Jonathan K. Idema,a convicted con man who gained notoriety in post-invasion Afghanistan as a swaggering hunter ofterrorists, then ignominy when he was imprisoned for taking Afghans hostage andtorturing them, died Jan. 21 at his home in Bacalar, Mexico. He was 55.

Penny Alesi, a former girlfriend, said the cause was AIDS. A StateDepartment spokesman confirmed the death.

Mr. Idema was a fast-talking, sunglasses-wearing, AK-47-toting fortunehunter and a flamboyant figure in Kabul, the capital, in the early 2000s. Heflaunted his experience as a member of the Army’s Special Forces, or GreenBerets. and let on that he was in cahoots with American and Afghan intelligenceofficials as he pursued the big rewards offered for leaders of Al Qaeda. Hecultivated the news media, often with tall tales.

He provided broadcasters with videotape of supposed terrorist trainingcamps; was interviewed as a covert operative by National Public Radio and FoxNews; and insinuated himself into a book by the author Robin Moore, “The Huntfor Bin Laden.” Few knew he had served three years in federal prison in the1990s on 58 counts of fraud. That information came out in 2004 when he wastried in Afghanistan for imprisoning and torturing eight men in a private jailthat he and his civilian colleagues ran in the hope of getting informationabout terrorists and bounty money. (They wore uniforms with the American flagon the sleeves and called themselves Task Force Saber 7.) The case was widelycompared to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

His defense was that he had been working for the American and Afghangovernments. Both denied it, although at the trial American military officialsacknowledged taking his calls and once interrogating a suspect he had capturedbefore releasing him.

“Perhaps if he did something successful, the government would payattention to him,” a Western diplomat said to The New York Times.

Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Mr. Idema was pardoned by PresidentHamid Karzai after 3. He said he did not know Mr. Karzai’s reasons, nor why hehad been given an apartment-style cell in prison with satellite television,Persian carpets and specially prepared meals.

Jonathan Keith Idema’s eventful life began May 30, 1956, inPoughkeepsie, N.Y., and ended in Mexico in a town on the Yucatan Peninsula,where he called himself Black Jack, ran a charter boat, was said to hold orgiesand flew a pirate flag over his house.

He sued people constantly. One was Steven Spielberg. Mr. Idemacontended that he was the basis of the George Clooney character, a SpecialForces operative, in the 1997 movie “ThePeacemaker,” produced by Mr. Spielberg’s company, DreamWorks. Theclaim was dismissed, and Mr. Idema was ordered to pay $267,079 in legal fees.

His father said Mr. Idema had been an Eagle Scout. He himself said thedirection of his life was set when he saw the 1968 John Wayne movie “TheGreen Berets,” loosely based on a book by Mr. Moore. Mr. Idemajoined the Green Berets after enlisting in the Army at 18. The Vietnam War wasending, and he saw no combat, though he later claimed he did.

He was honorably discharged but not allowed to re-enlist, according totestimony in a 1994 trial. An Army evaluation made public at the trial haddescribed him as “unmotivated, unprofessional, immature.”

During the 1980s he did security work in Haiti and Thailand. He saidhe sometimes took his dog, Sarge, who parachuted out of airplanes with him andsniffed for bombs.

Back at home, he was arrested as many as 36 times in the 1980s and1990s on various charges, including possession of stolen property and assaultwith a firearm. He was never convicted.

In 1991 he went to Lithuania to train local police officers. There, hecontended, he discovered a black market in backpack-size nuclear weapons,though many weapons experts consider the existence of such weapons unlikely. Henevertheless contributed to a “60 Minutes” segment on the issue. When theF.B.I. asked him to reveal his Lithuanian sources, he refused. His refusal, helater claimed, prompted a federal prosecution against him for business fraud.

Thatbusiness was making products for paintball combat games. He was convicted ofpurchasing materials using faked credit references.

Mr. Idema went toAfghanistan in November 2001 to make a documentary for National Geographic onhumanitarian efforts there, but he soon abandoned the project and turned tobounty hunting and fighting. He began calling himself Jack and tellingjournalists he was an adviser to the Northern Alliance, the Afghan group thentrying to oust the ruling Taliban. He became a regular on conservative talkradio in the United States.

In 2002, he provided what he said were Qaeda training videos to “60Minutes II,” which broadcast them. Rolling Stone magazine quoted Dan Rather assaying that Mr. Idema was “an adventurer with a conscience.”

He had a temper. He once fired a shot within six inches of the head ofa reporter for The Dallas Morning News. He threatened to punch the broadcastjournalist Geraldo Rivera.

Mr. Idema made big, unprovable boasts. One was that he had discoveredhandwritten Qaeda plans to assassinate President Bill Clinton at a Malaysiansummit meeting in 1998. Mr. Clinton did not attend, but Vice President Al Goredid. No attack was attempted.

Interested in his exploits, Mr. Moore, who had Parkinson’s disease,enlisted Mr. Idema to help write the 2003 book “Task Force Dagger: The Hunt forBin Laden.” Mr. Idema ended up writing and rewriting chapters, mostly toglorify the “Jack” character — himself. Mr. Moore later disavowed the changes.

After his release from the Afghan prison, Mr. Idema did not return tothe United States. Ms. Alesi, his former girlfriend, said he feared beingprosecuted there for any number of things. Instead he went to Dubai and thenEngland before moving to Mexico.

674. Book Review: The Origins of AIDS

2012-01-29T17:07:00.000-08:00

By Peter Piot, Science, December 3, 2011: Vol. 334 no. 6063 pp. 1642-1643

The Origins of AIDS by Jacques Pepin Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011. 309 pp. $85, £45. ISBN 9781107006638. Paper, $28.99, £17.99. ISBN 9780521186377.

Since the investigation of the first known outbreak ofEbola hemorrhagic fever in 1976 in Yambuku area, Zaire (now Democratic Republicof Congo), which was largely due to unsafe medical injections, I have beenfascinated by the sometimes devastating consequences of medical injections. Addto this the finding that between 1976 and 1986 HIV prevalence remainedunchanged at 0.8% in the same region (1), andI read Jacques Pepin's The Origins of AIDS in one go.

Pepin, an infectious disease specialist at the Universitéde Sherbrooke, Quebec, has vast experience as a clinician and epidemiologist inAfrica. In this concise book, he draws on three decades of scientific andhistorical research to comprehensively address one of the big enigmas ofmedical history: the origin of AIDS—a disease first reported only as recentlyas 1981. Thanks to extraordinarily meticulous virological, genetic, andecological studies, we have very strong evidence that HIV-1 stems from thegenetically very close strains of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIVcpz) of thechimpanzee Pan troglodytes troglodytes from central Africa. However, the courseand causes of the initial spread of HIV-1 in humans after the virus crossedhost species remain unclear, with very few of the details firmly established.

Pepin confronts us in great detail with some puzzlingfacts that suggest the epidemic that to date has infected over 60 millionpeople originated with fewer than ten people scattered over central Africa.During the first decades of the 20th century, each of these ten became infectedwith one of four genetic groups of HIV-1 (M, N, O, and P) from chimpanzees.Pepin's central thesis is that medical injections and procedures jump-startedthe HIV epidemic in Africa, building up a critical mass of HIV-infectedindividuals. This mass then ultimately gave rise to a predominantly sexuallytransmitted epidemic. He agrees with most other experts in the field that todaymedical injections play only a minor role in the global spread of HIV. And hesummarizes the overwhelming evidence against Edward Hooper's hypothesis (2) thatthe emergence of the disease “was triggered by the contamination of an oralpolio vaccine with a simian immunodeficiency virus through the use ofchimpanzee cells during vaccine production.”

The author makes some brave assumptions andextrapolations from mostly isolated facts—just as paleontologists have nochoice but to draw a complete skeleton on the basis of a few pieces of bones,date it, and estimate the place of the new individual in human evolution.Tapping the archives and medical literature of the colonial powers in West andCentral Africa, he presents a plethora of details going back to as far as thebeginning of the 20th century. They reveal little-known and sometimes shockingelements of not-so-distant medical history, such as a French colonial surgeonimplanting chimpanzee testicles in men seeking eternal youth and experimentalinjections of chimpanzee blood in patients with syphilis in Belgium.

On the basis of both contemporary concepts oftransmissibility and historic demographic and behavioral data, Pepin suggeststhat the efficiency of sexual transmission of HIV-1 was too low to enable thevirus to spread beyond a few individuals. He then shows how mass campaignsorganized by French and Belgian colonial administrations to treat tropicaldiseases such as yaws, sleeping sickness, leprosy, syphilis, and malariaexposed hundreds of thousands of people to intravenous or intramuscular injectionswith potentially contaminated needles and glass syringes. These campaignsaffected both rural and urban populations, and in areas of habitat of P.troglodytes troglodytes north of the Congo River they may have been thedefining factor in slowly building up enough infected individuals to sustainhuman HIV-1 infection. For decades the reproductive rate R_o of HIV-1in Africa was clearly around 1, and AIDS remained at very low prevalencelevels. But eventually a fatal combination of urbanization, prostitution, andmass treatment of sexually transmitted infections generated a perfect storm inLéopoldville (now Kinshasa), the capital of Belgian Congo, for amplifying thespread of the disease. The presence of over 4000 Haitian United Nationsemployees during the turbulent years after the independence of Congo in 1960probably led to the introduction of HIV-1 in Haiti. The rest of the story iswell documented.

The Origins of AIDS presents the defining pandemic ofour modern times as a tragedy embedded in colonization, urbanization, andpublic health campaigns. It reminds us that well-intentioned humaninterventions can have unpredictable and disastrous microbiologic consequences.Extensively referenced, the well-written book reads like a detective story,while at the same time providing a didactic introduction to epidemiology andevolutionary genetics. As far as the origins of AIDS are concerned, unless somecompletely new evidence emerges, it will be difficult to come up with a betterexplanation than Pepin's. The role of medical injections in the initial spreadof HIV in Africa is quite plausible. It is certainly consistent with morerecent outbreaks of HIV among injecting drug users seen in various countriesand with the massive iatrogenic epidemic of hepatitis C virus infection inEgypt as a result of mass treatment of schistosomiasis. Nonetheless, the actualkey events in the spread of HIV-1 may not be covered by a rational model ofaverage probabilities of transmission and behaviors As Pepin himself comments,we may never know whether “the pandemic was in essence caused by anunpredictable factor: bad luck.”

References and Notes

1. N.Nzila, et al., N.Engl. J. Med. 318, 276 (1988).  Medline Web of Science 

2. E.Hooper, TheRiver: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS (Penguin, London, 1999);reviewed in R. A.Weiss, Science 286, 1305 (1999). FREE Full Text

The reviewer is at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK, E-mail: peter.piot@lshtm.ac.uk

673. In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S.

2012-01-27T15:38:00.000-08:00

Obama welcomes Honduras president Lobo

By Dana Frank, The New York Times, January 26, 2012

IT’S time to acknowledge the foreign policy disaster that Americansupport for the Porfirio Lobo administration in Honduras has become. Ever since the June 28,2009, coup that deposed Honduras’s democratically elected president, José Manuel Zelaya, the country has beendescending deeper into a human rights and security abyss. That abyss is in goodpart the State Department’s making.

The headlines have been full of horror stories about Honduras.According to the United Nations, it now has the world’s highest murder rate,and San Pedro Sula, its second city, is more dangerous than Ciudad Juárez,Mexico, a center for drug cartel violence.

Much of the press in the United States has attributed this violencesolely to drug trafficking and gangs. But the coup was what threw open thedoors to a huge increase in drug trafficking and violence, and it unleashed acontinuing wave of state-sponsored repression.

The current government of President Lobo won power in a November 2009election managed by the same figures who had initiated the coup. Mostopposition candidates withdrew in protest, and all major internationalobservers boycotted the election, except for the National Democratic Instituteand the International Republican Institute, which are financed by the UnitedStates.

President Obama quickly recognized Mr. Lobo’svictory, even when most of Latin America would not. Mr. Lobo’s government is,in fact, a child of the coup. It retains most of the military figures whoperpetrated the coup, and no one has gone to jail for starting it.

This chain of events — a coup that the United States didn’t stop, afraudulent election that it accepted — has now allowed corruption to mushroom.The judicial system hardly functions. Impunity reigns. At least 34 members ofthe opposition have disappeared or been killed, and more than 300 people havebeen killed by state security forces since the coup, according to the leadinghuman rights organization Cofadeh. At least 13 journalists have beenkilled since Mr. Lobo took office, according to the Committee to ProtectJournalists.

The police in Tegucigalpa, the capital, are believed to have killedthe son of Julieta Castellanos, the rector of the country’s biggest university,along with a friend of his, on Oct. 22, 2011. Top police officials quicklyadmitted their suspects were police officers, but failed to immediately detainthem. When prominent figures came forward to charge that the police are riddledwith death squads and drug traffickers, the most famous accuser was a formerpolice commissioner, Alfredo Landaverde. He was assassinated on Dec. 7. Onlynow has the government begun to make significant arrests of police officers.

State-sponsored repression continues. According to Cofadeh, at least43 campesino activists participating in land struggles in the Aguán Valley havebeen killed in the past two and a half years at the hands of the police, themilitary and the private security army of Miguel Facussé. Mr. Facussé ismentioned in United States Embassy cables made public by WikiLeaks as therichest man in the country, a big supporter of the post-coup regime and ownerof land used to transfer cocaine.

And yet, in early October, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Lobo at the WhiteHouse for leadership in a “restoration of democratic practices.” Since the coupthe United States has maintained and in some areas increased military andpolice financing for Honduras and has been enlarging its military bases there,according to an analysis by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Congress,though, has finally begun to push back. Last May, 87 members signed a letter toSecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calling for a suspension of militaryand police aid to Honduras. Representative Howard L. Berman of California, theranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to her on Nov.28, asking whether the United States was arming a dangerous regime. And inDecember, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and others obtainedconditions on a small portion of the 2012 police and military aid appropriatedfor Honduras.

Why has the State Department thrown itself behind the Lobo administrationdespite brutal evidence of the regime’s corruption? In part because it hascaved in to the Cuban-American constituency of Representative IleanaRos-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,and her allies. They have been ferocious about Honduras as a first domino withwhich to push back against the line of center-left and leftist governments thathave won elections in Latin America in the past 15 years. With its American airbase, Honduras is also crucial to the United States’ military strategy in LatinAmerica.

As Honduras plunges into a tragic abyss, it’s time to finally cut offall police and military aid. “Stop feeding the beast” is the way Ms.Castellanos, the academician whose son was killed, puts it. She, like otherhuman rights advocates, insists that the Lobo government cannot reform itself.

The State Department is beginning to help address the situation behindthe scenes. But Honduran human-rights activists, along with many of us in theUnited States who care about Honduras, do not believe that this administrationcan, or should, manage a cleanup of the very cesspool it helped to create bysupporting a government that owes its power to a coup.

Instead, we need to respect proposals for alternative approaches thatHonduran human-rights advocates and the opposition are beginning to formulate.These come from people who are still fighting against the coup and who continueto risk paying the price of being shot dead by state security forces.

They, not the State Department, have the right to lead their countryforward.

Dana Frank, a professor of history at theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz, is at work on a book about theA.F.L.-C.I.O.’s cold-war intervention in the Honduran labor movement.

672. Japanese Experts Question Safety of—and Need for—Nuclear Power

2012-01-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

Portest against nuclear power in Tokyo

By Dennis Normile, Science Insider, January 27, 2012

TOKYO—Japan is preparing for the possibility of a summerwithout nuclear power as utilities and safety experts squabble over the safetyof the country's remaining reactors. And a key government minister is callingthe power industry's bluff—that blackouts will occur if plants idled forinspection are not brought online—by saying the nation could avoid disruptionby relying on conservation and thermal power.

By law, nuclear power plants must be periodically shutdown for maintenance and inspection; utilities need national and localpermission to restart operations. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, lastsummer the governing Democratic Party of Japan required "stresstests," analyses of a facility's ability to withstand natural disasters,to be part of the periodic inspection routine. That analysis was carried outfor two reactors at a plant in Ohi on the Japan Sea coast and submitted forreview to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), which concludedthey had passed. Operator Kansai Electric Power is seeking approval to restartthe two reactors.

But today two members of a NISA advisory committeecalled the stress tests flawed and "not proof of safety." At a pressconference, Hiromitsu Ino, a materials scientist and professor emeritus at theUniversity of Tokyo, and Masashi Goto, a former nuclear power plant designer,said their concerns were simply ignored in the final report.

Ino said there are nine issues the stress tests failedto address. He said the criteria for the tests should reflect lessons learnedfrom the Fukushima disaster, but that the studies into the sequence of eventsthat led to the cascade of failures are ongoing. Without the results of thosestudies, he says, the criteria being used are "subjective and unclear."He notes that the stress tests called for checking facility resistance toshaking 1.8 times the design earthquake, yet seismologists have noted thatthose design events are based on the historical record and it is now clear thatmuch more powerful earthquakes have occurred over geologic time. The analysesalso do not consider the inevitable degradation over time of a reactor'smaterials.

Meanwhile, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister YukioEdano was reported in this morning's Asahi Shimbun (newspaper) as saying it isconceivable that none of the country's nuclear power plants will be operatingthis summer because of the difficulty of gaining local approval to restart. OfJapan's 54 nuclear reactors, only three are currently operating, and they mustshut down for periodic inspection by the end of April.

Although gaining local approval is not legally required,Edano's comments indicate that the national government might support the stanceof local officials, which puts a very high hurdle in front of the utilities. Thegovernor of Fukui Prefecture, which hosts the Ohi nuclear power plant, is onrecord as opposing the restart of any commercial nuclear power plants. "Iam hoping that in this situation decisions will reflect what local peoplewant," Ino said.

Edano told the newspaper that thermal power andconservation efforts should get the country through the summer without thecutbacks and blackouts imposed last year. He added that his ministry is workingon countermeasures to handle reduced power output.

A new national energy policy is due by the end of the summer,and observers expect it could call for a phase-out of nuclear power. A suddenand permanent shut down of all reactors, however, would be a huge surprise.

671. Who Owns the World?

2012-01-27T09:19:00.000-08:00

World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, 2011

By Nick Buxton, Transnational Institute, January 27, 2012

Thisweek as the world's elites met in the swiss skiing village of Davos,Transational Institute's (TNI) Corporate Power project launched a series ofpowerful infographics, to expose the Global 0.001%, the corporations they runand the cost of corporate power.

Theinfographics can be seen here: http://www.tni.org/report/state-corporate-power-2012

Someof the most compelling stats that stand out from the infographics are:

• 8 ofthe top 10 richest companies in the world are fossil fuel companies

• 1% of theworld's companies, almost all banks, control 40% of the shares of the world'smajor corporations

• 0.15%of the world's population control two-thirds of world GDP, and with theirassets could pay the costs of universal and primary school education for 190year.

• A tinypercentage of the global population, 0.001%, control $15.4 trillion dollars

• theextensive corporate ties of those who have pushed forward the neoliberalproject

Overthe next few months, TNI will be producing a further series of infographicslooking more closely at issues of land, water, energy, trade and investment.

Wevery much hope you will help build the growing global awareness on inequalityand corporate power by sharing these infographics with your own networks and friends.I suggest some options for promotion below.

Thanksfor your support.

NickBuxton

PS.Options for promoting the TNI infographics

• Sendaround an email to your lists or friends promoting the infographics among your networks.

• If youare on Facebook, go to our Facebook gallery and share with your friends

• If youare on twitter, tweet about the infographics. You can retweet this: https://twitter.com/#!/transinstitute/status/162630624639860736or any one ofthe recent tweets on each infographic by TNI'

• If youhave an email list or newsletter on different topics, put a link as a PS or as"recommended"

• If youare reading a news article on a similar subject, consider adding a comment andpost a link through to the website

Thanks for any support you can give.

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670. Deforestation of the Amazon in Brazil Continues

2012-01-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

By Alexei Barrionevo, The New York Times, January 24, 2012

Deforestation in Brazil, driven largely by clearing land for cattle,
as in Mato Grosso, above, has lessened. But there has been
a shift under President Dilma Rousseff.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil —Brazil has made great strides in recent years in slowing Amazon deforestationand showing the world it was serious about protecting the mammoth rain forest.

Thegovernment has used police raids, as in the state of Pará, above, to findillegal deforesters.

The rate of deforestation fell by 80 percent over the past six years,as the government carved out about 150 million acres for conservation — an arearoughly the size of France — and used police raids and other tactics to crackdown on illegal deforesters, according to both environmentalists and thegovernment. Brazil’s former environment minister, Marina Silva, became aninternationally respected defender of the Amazon. She ran for president in 2010on the Green Party ticket and won 19.4 percent of the votes.

But since Dilma Rousseff was elected president in late2010, there have been signs of a shift in the government’s attitude toward theAmazon. A provisional measure now allows the president to decrease the landsalready created for conservation. The government is granting more flexibilityfor large infrastructure projects during the environmental licensing process.And a proposal would give Brazil’s Congress veto power over the recognition ofindigenous territories.

“What is happening in Brazil is the biggest backsliding that we couldever imagine with regards to environmental policies,” said Ms. Silva, who nowdevotes her time to environmental advocacy.

Now, a bill seeking to overhaul the 47-year-old Forest Code, a centralpiece of environmental legislation, is the most serious test yet of Ms.Rousseff’s stance on the environment.

The debate over the law has revealed the stark disconnect between apopulation that is increasingly supportive of conserving the Amazon and aCongress in which agricultural interests in the country’s rural north andnortheast still hold sway. The furor comes as Brazil is set to hold a UnitedNations conference on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro in June.

Before taking office last January, Ms. Rousseff promised to veto anyrevision of the Forest Code that granted amnesty to landowners who hadpreviously deforested illegally. Then her government negotiated a version ofthe code, approved by the Senate in December, that would give amnesty tofarmers who broke the law before 2008 — provided they agreed to plant newtrees. The House is expected to debate the legislation once again in March,with Ms. Rousseff holding final veto power.

The fight over the Forest Code has stoked the age-old struggle overdevelopment versus conservation in Brazil, a country that bears the weight ofinternational pressure to protect the Amazon from deforestation because itssheer scale could affect global climatic conditions. Ms. Rousseff, a formerenergy minister, has so far flashed a more pro-development stance,environmentalists say, shifting the balance from the administration of herpredecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who appointed Ms.Silva.

Agriculture represents 22 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product.The so-called ruralists in Congress say that the old code is holding backBrazil’s agricultural potential and that it needs updating to allow more landto be opened up to production. Environmentalists counter that there is alreadyenough land available to double production and that the proposed changes wouldopen the door to a surge in deforestation.

Last May, the House approved a more sweeping amnesty for those who hadillegally deforested, outraging environmentalists and scientists. It did nothelp that the deputies refused to receive a group of respected Brazilianscientists that issued a report condemning the changes.

“In the House, there was very little consultation with scientists,”said Carlos Nobre, a scientist at Brazil’s National Institute for SpaceResearch who specializes in climate issues. Still, he said, scientists “waitedtoo long to realize that the House wanted to radically change the Forest Code,creating a broad and unrestricted license to deforest.”

Ms. Silva, who was raised in the Amazon, resigned in 2008 after abacklash by rural governors to restrictions on illegal deforestation she hadput in place. But she left what environmentalists consider an effective policyto control Amazon deforestation. Among other tactics, Mr. da Silva’s governmentused satellite images to home in on deforesters, organized police raids andblacklisted the worst offenders.

“The ruralists have pushed so much to change the Forest Code becausethe government actually started enforcing it under Marina Silva,” said StephanSchwartzman, director for tropical forest policy at the Environmental DefenseFund in Washington.

Thevote in the House showed how heavily represented the less developed north andnortheast are in Brazil’s Congress, a relic of the military dictatorship.

“The skewedproportional representation in Brazil has shown that the environmentalists havemuch less power in Congress than they have in public opinion,” said GilbertoCâmara, director of the National Institute for Space Research, which monitorsAmazon deforestation.

Days after the House vote last May, a poll by Datafolha showed that 85percent of Brazilians believed the reformed code should prioritize forests andrivers, even if it came at the expense of agricultural production.

After weeks of debate, the bill the Senate approved in December wassomewhat more palatable to environmentalists. Rather than outright amnesty forpast illegal deforestation, the Senate version lets farmers replant to avoidfines. The legislation now goes back to the House.

“We have to reconcile the generation of income with sustainability,”Izabella Teixeira, the current environment minister, said after the vote.

For Marcos Jank, president of the Brazilian Sugarcane IndustryAssociation, a major reason to change the code is to legalize countless Amazonproperties lacking land titles that have complicated the tracking of illegalactivity. “When you have a Forest Code that legalizes land titles, then thathas the effect of reducing deforestation, not increasing it,” he said.

The government claims the code will reforest about 60 million acres,much of it in the Amazon, which the Environment Ministry calls “the largestreforestation program in the world.” But who will pay for all those new trees?And will the government enforce the replanting requirements?

“The small producers don’t have the money to replant,” Mr. Jank said.“You need to develop programs to help them.”

There are also questions about the size of lands being exempted fromthe legal requirement to preserve 80 percent of the trees in Amazon properties.The new law would exempt “small” properties of up to four “fiscal modules,”which in the Amazon are almost 1,000 acres combined.

“That is a large property in any part of the world,” Mr. Nobre said.“I see great risk here if this definition is maintained.”

Despite the concerns, there is no denying that deforestation inBrazil, driven largely by clearing land for inefficient cattle grazing, hasbeen on a downward trend. Beyond that, a new generation of satellites over thenext two years will give Brazil access to images from seven satellites, up fromthe current two.

If people abide by the law — a big if — Mr. Câmara and otherscientists are predicting that the Brazilian Amazon has a chance by 2020 tobecome a “carbon sink,” in which the amount of forest being replanted is largerthan the amount being deforested.

“President Rousseff is extremely aware of this,” Mr. Câmara said.“When I told her, she almost fell off her chair.”

Butto make that happen, “there has to be very strong government financing andsupport for people to recover the forest,” he said.

669. Song Birds and Bats Suffer from Mercury Poisoning

2012-01-26T09:18:00.000-08:00

Wood Thrush suffers neurological disorder
caused by mercury poisoning

By Anthony De Palma, The New York Times, January 23, 2012

The strictnew federal standards limiting pollution from power plants are meantto safeguard human health. But they should have an important side benefit,according to a study being released on Tuesday: protecting a broad array ofwildlife that has been harmed by mercury emissions.

Thelittle brown bat, which is already stressed by white-nose syndrome, is anotherspecies affected by mercury exposure.

Songbirds and bats suffer some of the same types of neurological disordersfrom mercury as humans and especially children do, says the study, “HiddenRisk,” by the BiodiversityResearch Institute, a nonprofit organization in Gorham, Me., thatinvestigates emerging environmental threats.

Methylmercury, the most toxic form of the heavy metal, was found to bewidespread throughout the Northeast — not just in lakes and rivers, as hadalready been known, but also in forests, on mountaintops and in bogs andmarshes that are home to birds long thought to be at minimal risk.

The new study found dangerously high levels of mercury in severalNortheastern bird species, including rusty blackbirds, saltmarsh sparrows andwood thrushes. Previous studies have shown mercury’s effects on loons and otherfish-eating waterfowl, as well as bald eagles, panthers and otters. In onestudy, zebra finches lost the ability to hit high notes in mating songs whenmercury levels rose, affecting reproduction.

“We’re seeing many other species in a much larger landscape of harmfrom mercury,” said the principal author, David C. Evers, who is theinstitute’s executive director. He called the Environmental Protection Agency’snew mercury standards, adopted last month and scheduled to take effect over thenext four years, “an excellent step forward in reducing and minimizing theimpact on ecosystems and improving ecological health, and therefore our ownhealth.”

Mercury, which occurs naturally in the earth, is released into the airwhen coal is burned in power plants. The gaseous mercury can drift hundreds ofmiles before settling back to earth, sometimes along with rain. The mercury canbe absorbed by tree leaves; when they fall to the ground they are swarmed bybacteria and other organisms that convert the mercury to its organic form. Theorganic form, methylmercury, is a neurotoxin that can enter the food chain.Small insects, worms and snails that feed on forest litter absorb the mercury.In turn, they are eaten by birds and other small animals, and so on through thefood chain.

Dr. Evers said levels of contamination were highest in habitats likemarshes and beaver ponds that go through cycles of wet and dry, even if theyare far from power plants. He also found that threshold levels at which somespecies begin to feel the effects of mercury are much lower than previouslythought.

Songbirds with blood mercury levels of just 0.7 parts per milliongenerally showed a 10 percent reduction in the rate at which eggs successfullyhatched. As mercury increases, reproduction decreases. At mercury levels ofgreater than 1.7 parts per million, the ability of eggs to hatch is reduced bymore than 30 percent, according to the study.

Over all, birds in contaminated sites were found to be three times aslikely to abandon their nests or exhibit abnormal incubation or feedingbehavior. In some nests, the chicks seemed to have been affected most; theyvocalized less and did not beg as aggressively to be fed.

Such consequences mimic the effects of mercury on humans whose primarycontact with the toxin is through the consumption of fish. The contaminationcan be passed to children in the womb or while they are nursing, damaging theirnervous systems and impairing their ability to learn.

“It’s incredibly important that someone is following what is happeningto these birds,” said Joanna Burger, a behavioral ecologist at RutgersUniversity who has studied mercury contamination in animals. “The birds notonly act as sentinels to what is happening in nature, but the results of thesestudies propose hypotheses for effects that have not yet been identified forpeople.”

Dr. Evers has been studying mercury in terrestrial species for 11years across 11 states, from Virginia to Maine, continually adding new speciesand ecosystems. In the latest study, done in cooperation with the NatureConservancy, biologists found that little brown bats, already stressed by whitenose syndrome in the Northeast, accumulate substantial amounts of mercurybecause they can live up to 30 years — three times as long as songbirds.

The mercury is believed to cause bats to act erratically, and in somecases to lose their adeptness at avoiding wind turbine blades.

“What people don’t realize is that our rain isn’t just acidic,” saidTimothy H. Tear, director of science for the Nature Conservancy in New York.“It is neurotoxic.”

The effects of mercury can lead to the degradation of entireecosystems, Dr. Tear explained. “You don’t see birds falling off tree limbsbecause they have too much mercury,” he said, “but they’re not doing the jobthey used to.”

668. U.S. Military Getting Closer to Autonomous Drone

2012-01-26T09:04:00.000-08:00

X-47B drone marks a paradigm shift in warfare

By W. J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2012

TheNavy's new drone being tested near Chesapeake Bay stretches the boundaries oftechnology: It's designed to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier, one ofaviation's most difficult maneuvers.

What'seven more remarkable is that it will do that not only without a pilot in thecockpit, but without a pilot at all.

TheX-47B marks a paradigm shift in warfare, one that is likely to havefar-reaching consequences. With the drone's ability to be flown autonomously byonboard computers, it could usher in an era when death and destruction can bedealt by machines operating semi-independently.

Althoughhumans would program an autonomous drone's flight plan and could override itsdecisions, the prospect of heavily armed aircraft screaming through the skieswithout direct human control is unnerving to many.

"Lethalactions should have a clear chain of accountability," said Noel Sharkey, acomputer scientist and robotics expert. "This is difficult with a robotweapon. The robot cannot be held accountable. So is it the commander who usedit? The politician who authorized it? The military's acquisition process? Themanufacturer, for faulty equipment?"

Sharkeyand others believe that autonomous armed robots should force the kind ofdialogue that followed the introduction of mustard gas in World War I andthe development of atomic weapons in World War II. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the group tasked by the GenevaConventions to protect victims in armed conflict, is already examining theissue.

"Thedeployment of such systems would reflect … a major qualitative change in theconduct of hostilities," committee President Jakob Kellenberger said at arecent conference. "The capacity to discriminate, as required by[international humanitarian law], will depend entirely on the quality and varietyof sensors and programming employed within the system."

Weaponsspecialists in the military and Congress acknowledge that policymakers mustdeal with these ethical questions long before these lethal autonomous drones gointo active service, which may be a decade or more away.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said policy probably will first be discussedwith the bipartisan drone caucus that he co-chairs with Rep. Howard P."Buck" McKeon (R-Santa Clarita). Officially known as theCongressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, the panel was formed in 2009 to informmembers of Congress on the far-reaching applications of drone technology.

"It'sa different world from just a few years ago — we've entered the realm ofscience fiction in a lot of ways," Cuellar said. "New rules have tobe developed as new technology comes about, and this is a big stepforward."

Aerialdrones now piloted remotely have become a central weapon for the CIA and U.S. military in their campaign against terrorists in the Middle East. The Pentagon has gone from an inventory of a handful of drones beforeSept. 11, 2001, to about 7,500 drones, about one-third of all militaryaircraft.

Despitelooming military spending cuts, expenditures on drones are expected to takeless of a hit, if any, because they are cheaper to build and operate thanpiloted aircraft.

Allmilitary services are moving toward greater automation with their roboticsystems. Robotic armed submarines could one day stalk enemy waters, andautomated tanks could engage soldiers on the battlefield.

"Moreaggressive robotry development could lead to deploying far fewer U.S. militarypersonnel to other countries, achieving greater national security at a muchlower cost and most importantly, greatly reduced casualties," aerospacepioneer Simon Ramo, who helped develop the intercontinental ballistic missile,wrote in his new book, "Let Robots Do the Dying."

TheAir Force wrote in an 82-page report that outlines the future usage of drones,titled "Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047," thatautonomous drone aircraft are key "to increasing effects while potentiallyreducing cost, forward footprint and risk." Much like a chess master canoutperform proficient chess players, future drones will be able to react fasterthan human pilots ever could, the report said.

Andwith that potential comes new concerns about how much control of thebattlefield the U.S. is willing to turn over to computers.

Thereis no plan by the U.S. military — at least in the near term — to turn over thekilling of enemy combatants to the X-47B or any other autonomous flyingmachine. But the Air Force said in the "Flight Plan" that it's only amatter of time before drones have the capability to make life-or-deathdecisions as they circle the battlefield. Even so, the report notes thatofficials will still monitor how these drones are being used.

"Increasinglyhumans will no longer be 'in the loop' but rather 'on the loop' — monitoringthe execution of certain decisions," the report said. "Authorizing amachine to make lethal combat decisions is contingent upon political andmilitary leaders resolving legal and ethical questions."

PeterW. Singer, author of "Wired for War," a book about robotic warfare,said automated military targeting systems are under development. But beforeautonomous aerial drones are sent on seek-and-destroy missions, he said, themilitary must first prove that it can pull off simpler tasks, such as refuelingand reconnaissance missions.

That'swhere the X-47B comes in.

"Likeit or not, autonomy is the future," Singer said. "The X-47 is one ofmany programs that aim to perfect the technology."

TheX-47B is an experimental jet — that's what the X stands for — and is designedto demonstrate new technology, such as automated takeoffs, landings andrefueling. The drone also has a fully capable weapons bay with a payloadcapacity of 4,500 pounds, but the Navy said it has no plans to arm it.

TheNavy is now testing two of the aircraft, which were built behind razor-wirefences at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s expansive complex in Palmdale, where the company manufacturedthe B-2 stealth bomber.

Fundedunder a $635.8-million contract awarded by the Navy in 2007, the X-47B UnmannedCombat Air System Carrier Demonstration program has grown in cost to anestimated $813 million.

LastFebruary, the first X-47B had its maiden flight from Edwards Air Force Base,where it continued testing until last month when it was carried from the MojaveDesert to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in southern Maryland. It is therethat the next stage of the demonstration program begins.

Thedrone is slated to first land on a carrier by 2013, relying on pinpoint GPScoordinates and advanced avionics. The carrier's computers digitally transmitthe carrier's speed, cross-winds and other data to the drone as it approachesfrom miles away.

The X-47B will not only land itself, but will also know whatkind of weapons it is carrying, when and where it needs to refuel with anaerial tanker, and whether there's a nearby threat, said Carl Johnson,Northrop's X-47B program manager. "It will do its own math and decide whatit should do next."

667. Review of Forks Over Knives

2012-01-22T15:09:00.001-08:00

By Kamran Nayeri, January 22, 2012

One the most comprehensive nutritional studies show
the benefits of a plant-based diet

The Context

Advances in human health and longevity are due more to the progress of public health than to the advances of Western Scientific Medicine. While the former is based on a holisticmethodology that places individuals in their larger social and natural contexts and seek preventative measures to maintain health, the latter follows areductionist approach to disease and aims to be “curative.” Human illness is seen as caused bypathogens that can be combated using advances in scientific knowledge andmedical technologies.

Of course, the methodological movement from the whole to partis necessary to study basic biological processes and understand biologicalbasis of pathologies. However, the opposite movement, to go from suchunderstanding of biological basis of disease to the social and naturalcontexts that create and enforce the conditions for ill health is an oftenforgotten part in Western Scientific Medicine.

And then, there is the political economy of health care. There is a large literature that documents howmodern medicine as a capitalist industry has been more focused on “cure” than prevention. Medical industry has been a growing sector in industrial capitalist societies.A smaller but more effective health care system where prevention of diseasebecomes paramount undermines their profits. This perverse logic holds whether we consider the energyindustry and requirements of clean energy to stop climate change or if weconsider combating major chronic diseases such asheart disease, cancer and stroke.

In the U.S. two out of every three of person isoverweight. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially amongst our youngerpopulation. About half thepopulation is taking at least one prescription drug. Major medical operationshave become routine. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the country’s threeleading causes of death, even though billions are spent each year to"battle" these very conditions. Millions suffer from a host of otherdegenerative diseases.

The Movie

Forks Over Knives (2011, 1 hour and 36 minutes, rated PG) examines the claim thatmost, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can becontrolled, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods.The major storyline in the film traces the professional journeys of a pair ofpioneering researchers, Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.

Dr. Campbell, a nutritional scientist at CornellUniversity, was concerned in the late 1960′s with producing "high quality" animalprotein to bring to the poor and malnourished areas of the third world. Whilein the Philippines, he made a life-changing discovery: the country’s wealthierchildren, who were consuming relatively high amounts of animal-based foods,were much more likely to get liver cancer. Dr. Esselstyn, a top surgeon andhead of the Breast Cancer Task Force at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic,found that many of the diseases he routinely treated were virtually unknown inparts of the world where animal-based foods were rarely consumed.

These discoveries inspired Campbell and Esselstyn,who didn’t know each other yet, to conduct several groundbreaking studies. Oneof them took place in China and is still among the most comprehensivehealth-related investigations ever undertaken. Their research led them to astartling conclusion: degenerative diseases like heart disease, type 2diabetes, and even several forms of cancer, could almost always be prevented –and in many cases reversed – by adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet.Despite the profound implications of their findings, their work has remainedrelatively unknown to the public.

The idea of food as medicine is put to the test.Throughout the film, cameras follow actual patients who have chronic conditionsfrom heart disease to diabetes. Doctors teach these patients how to adopt awhole foods plant-based diet as the primary approach to treat their ailments –while the challenges and triumphs of their journeys are revealed.

From the Part to the Whole

It is understandable that the documentary tries tofocus on presenting its case for a plant-based diet—after all that is itspurpose. However, it also refersto the political economy of American nutritional diet. Viewers learn how the foodindustry has been on a relentless campaign to associate good nutrition with ananimal-based diet (“for protein eat meat,” “for calcium drink milk”) and howthe Department of Agriculture's nutritional guidelines have reinforced theindustry’s campaign. Viewers also learn how Drs.Campbell and Esselstyn have become marginalized from the mainstream medicine even in their respectiveworkplaces despite their much respected research that generated large grants (typically, an important measure for professional/academic advancement).

The movie also alludes to the connection between ananimal based diet and world hunger. At one point, the documentary alludesto the inefficiency of meat-production industry—for every pound of beef sixteenpounds of grain is required. In2011, more than 49billion pounds of red meat was produced in the United States alone. Grainsaved from moving from an animal-based diet to a plant-based diet could feedwell over a billion people worldwide.

The documentary also alludes to the methane gascreated and release in cattle production. Globally, ruminant livestock produceabout 80 million metric tons of methane annually, accounting for about 28% of global methane emissions from human-related activities. Livestock industry produce more global warming gases than transportation. A plant-based diet will reduce risks of unstoppable global warming and catastrophicclimate change.

But, of course, a plant-based diet is also ethicalwhereas an animal-based diet subjects hundreds of billions of farm animals tocruelty, torture and death (see, for example, Peter Singer’s AnimalLiberation, chapters 3 and 4).

As a vegetarian since 2000 and a vegansince 2007 (for health and then ethical reasons), I have experienced the merit of a plant-based diet first hand. I can also attest to the cultural barrier to such a shift.

Forks Over Knives has a message that will contribute not just to a healthier society but also to a more ethical one.

666. Labor and Environmental: Next Steps for Dialogue

2012-01-22T12:44:00.000-08:00

By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, Labor Network for Sustainability, no date

Whatdoes the future hold for the relationship between environmentalism andorganized labor? Judging from the highly-publicized controversy over theKeystone XL pipeline, America might appear to be entering a new era of conflictover environmental protection versus jobs. But in a recent speech to the UN InvestorSummit on Climate Risk, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka opens the way for expandedlabor-environment cooperation around climate protection. Trumka argues thataddressing the climate crisis is the way to address the jobs crisis. He callsfor a new dialogue between labor and environmental movements based on thatframe. Yet he also repeats some of the arguments and allegations that havefuelled labor-environmental conflict in the past. How should labor activistswho care about climate and environmental advocates who care about workersrespond?

Theclimate threat President Trumka begins with a forthright statement of theclimate threat. “Scientists tell us we are headed ever more swiftly towardirreversible climate change - with catastrophic consequences for humancivilization.” And far from being a threat only in a distant future, “Climatechange is happening now.” That demands action: “The carbon emissions from thatcoal, and from oil and natural gas, and agriculture and so much other humanactivity - causes global warming, and we have to act to cut those emissions,and act now.”

Whilethe AFL-CIO has gradually accepted the reality of man-made global warming, thisrepresents a far more forceful statement of the severity of the problem and theurgency of action. However, the AFL-CIO still has not endorsed even the minimaltargets for carbon reduction proposed by the world’s leading body of climatescientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), let alone thereduction of carbon in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million that America’sleading climate scientist, James Hansen, says is necessary to prevent those “catastrophicconsequences for human civilization.” Having recognized the reality of thethreat, it’s time for the AFL-CIO to endorse the cuts in carbon necessary toforestall them.

Climatejobs
 President Trumka poses the question whether the climate threat issomething we should disregard in the face of our global economic problems.Again his position is forthright: “Addressing climate risk is not a distraction”from solving our economic problems. Indeed, it is critical to the solution. “Everyfactory and power plant, every home and office, every rail line and highway,every vehicle, locomotive and plane, every school and hospital, must bemodernized, upgraded, renovated or replaced with something cleaner, more efficient,less wasteful.” That means “retooling our world.” And that means there isplenty of work to be done. “If we are going to rebuild, restore, modernize orreplace everything we inherited in just 30 years” we need “the skill and effortof all of us.”

Trumkarecognizes that this will not happen simply through current market forces. “Bythemselves, capital markets will not properly incorporate climate risk andreward into pricing investment opportunities.” Investors need “governmentpolicies to make sure that critical investments get made - investments inbuilding retrofits, in high speed rail and the smart grid, in carbon captureand sequestration.”

Trumkadoes not discuss what kind of economic tools may be required. Such a discussionshould certainly be part of any proposed labor-environmental dialogue.

While“putting a price on carbon” is necessary, both labor and environmentalmovements need to recognize that it is not likely to be adequate. Trumkaobserves that “not since World War II” have Americans “faced an equivalentnational challenge.” But that challenge was not met by letting companies thatfailed to shift to war production to buy “permits” that exempted them from suchresponsibilities. It was met by a combination of economic planning, public investment,and national resource allocation. The government contracted with corporationsto produce for wartime needs or met them itself; nonessential production wascurtailed; and resources were allocated to the war effort. The result was thegreatest investment in production the world had ever seen and the creation ofmillions of jobs. That is the kind and scale of effort that will be necessaryfor “retooling our world.”

Trumkasays “we as a nation must return to the work of passing a climate bill.” But tobe effective in protecting the climate or creating jobs, such a bill will needto be far different from the climate bills that emerged in Congress in 2009.For one thing, those bills largely exempted the largest carbon polluters frommaking serious reductions in their emissions. For another, they relied on “capand trade” incentives to encourage companies to make carbon-reducinginvestments. They did not provide for the necessary public investment in newinfrastructure that is necessary to move to a low-carbon economy. And they didnot provide for a just transition for workers and communities impacted byclimate policies. Although as Trumka notes climate legislation is currentlyblocked by the domination of climate deniers in Congress, labor and environmentalistsneed to start a dialogue now on such a new approach so that a powerfulcoalition can be drawn together for legislation that offers real solutions toboth our climate and our jobs problem.  

A just transition: A matter of justice
 PresidentTrumka points out that “too often, we have failed to consider who bears thecost of change and ensure that change is managed fairly and respectfully.” Hecalls for “those who care about climate change” to “engage with the peoplewhose livelihoods are tied up with carbon emissions.” Any other approach is “fundamentallyunfair.”

“Wemust ask ourselves, ‘How well does this pathway serve the least, the hardest toreach, the most likely to be left behind.’ Places like West Virginia and theOhio Valley must come first, not last.” In short, we need a “Just Transition toa low carbon-emissions economy.”

It isentirely appropriate for organized labor to pose environmentalists thechallenge of making a “just transition” to a low-carbon emissions world. Butsuch a transition will inevitably impact some of those whose livelihoods are “tiedup with carbon emissions.” Organized labor needs to develop a strategy forprotecting the livelihoods of people that is compatible with changing the jobsthey do.

Ajust transition: A political necessity for climate protection 
President Trumkasays “we are not acting fast enough” in response to the climate crisis, and heasks why that should be when “tens of millions need work, when investors havebillions in cash parked making almost nothing and the risks of doing nothingare mounting?”

Hesays an important part of the answer lies in the fact that many people seeclimate protection as threatening their jobs and economic wellbeing. In manyplaces “there is fear that the ‘green economy’ will turn into another versionof the radical inequality that now haunts our society - another economy thatworks for the 1% and not for the 99%.” He asks “why, in an economy without aneffective safety net, would the good men and women of my hometown [Nemacolin,PA] and a thousand places like it surrender their whole lives and sit by whileothers try to force them to bear the cost of change.”

Dealingwith their concerns is essential for climate protection. “Addressing climaterisk” is a path that is only open “if it is a path to an economy that works forthe 99% who seek good jobs, economic security and healthy communities - notjust in New York, but in Nemacolin, and in countries around the world, fromAustralia to Poland to South Africa to China, countries that face the sameissues and share the same climate with you and me.”

Toget there, Trumka calls for “those who care about climate change” to “engagewith the people whose livelihoods are tied up with carbon emissions.”Investors, companies, workers, environmental activists, governments - need tobe part of this dialogue. “Any other approach to addressing climate risk is notjust fundamentally unfair, it simply won’t work in our democracy.”

Coal 
PresidentTrumka is the son and grandson of coal miners, and was the president of theUnited Mine Workers Union before becoming president of the AFL-CIO. So it isnot surprising that he puts the issues of coal front and center. His main themeis right on target: The basic principle that those who work in coal producingand using industries should not pay the cost of a socially necessarytransition. But there are a number of factual and analytical issues that needto be looked at with a critical eye.

Trumkasays that Mayor Bloomberg advocates that we stop burning coal “this afternoon”and “cut the power in the U.S. grid by 50 percent.” He adds, if we did, “He’dbe reading handwritten memos by candlelight this evening.” Bloomberg did indeedgive the Sierra Club a $50 million grant to campaign to move “beyond coal.”What the Sierra Club is calling for, however, is not an instant shutdown of allcoal-fired power plants but a planned closing of at most a third of the nation’soldest coal-fired power plants by 2020.

Athoughtfully planned transition from coal to other forms of power has been thebasis for labor-environmental cooperation in phasing out coal-fired powerplants in places like Centralia, Washington and Madison, Wisconsin in ways thatcut emissions while protecting workers. Labor-environmental-community dialogueis required to develop such plans for a worker-friendly transition beyond coal.But the only concrete proposal Trumka advocates for coal is to assure thatcompanies that commit to retrofits to reduce mercury and sulfur emissions willhave time enough to complete them.

Ajust transition for coal miners 
Part of the environmental-labor dialogue needsto be a far broader approach to the wellbeing of coal-related workers andcommunities.

Trumkaspeaks eloquently about the role of coal in his hometown of Nemacolin, Pennsylvania,where his father and grandfather were coal miners. He says that when folks inNemacolin hear the slogan “End Coal,” it sounds like “a threat to destroy thevalue of our homes, to shut our schools and churches, to drive us away from theplace our parents and grandparents are buried, to take away the work that formore than a hundred years has made us who we are.”

However,the traditional mining that Trumka describes is steadily becoming a thing ofthe past. In Appalachia the accessible coal seams have almost all been used up.Instead, in Appalachia coal is increasingly produced by techniques likemountaintop removal that devastate the environment but create few jobs.Meanwhile, most of the industry has shifted to the West. Wyoming producesnearly three times as much coal as West Virginia, yet Wyoming employed fewerthan 6,000 coal miners. The United Mine Workers Union, which once had half amillion miners on its rolls, has only 86,000 members, many of whom are retireesor are not even miners. There are fewer than 50,000 underground miners left inthe US. It is the coal companies pursuing profits, not environmentalprotection, that is destroying the way of life in Nemacolin. In fact, the coalcompanies are already “ending coal” as the Trumka family knew it. Afteroperating nearly 70 years, the coalmine in Nemacolin shut down production in1986.

Thisis not to argue that coal miners and their communities should have to bear theburden of climate protection - that, as Trumka points out, would simply beunjust. But the way to provide them a decent future is not to perpetuate theuse of coal-fired power plants. Instead, it is to develop a serious plan for ajust transition. Labor should join hands with environmentalists and localcommunities to demand:

Massivepublic and private investment in renewable energy and energy conservation indeclining coal regions like Appalachia.

Aredevelopment strategy like that used for military bases that have been closedunder the Base Closing Commission.

A“GI Bill”-style retraining program, including full college education or itsequivalent, for those who have lost employment due to climate protectionpolicies.

Retirementwith good pensions and full medical benefits for all for whom such retrainingis not an appropriate solution.

Theseare demands on which organized labor and “beyond coal” advocates can joinhands. They should be part of the national policy of both. Equally important,in every community where there is a possibility that coal plants will be shutdown, there should be a labor-environment-community alliance to promote justtransition policies.

Thefuture of the dialogue 
President Trumka closed by proposing that “all of us sitdown together on the basis that we live on one planet, and that we share acommon humanity that requires respect for each others’ families andcommunities. In particular we need dialogue between environmentalists andworkers and communities about the future of coal. About what the global labormovement calls a Just Transition to a low carbon emissions economy.” He added, “TheAFL-CIO is ready to host that dialogue.”

TheKeystone XL pipeline divided the labor movement itself and divided it from itscrucial environmental allies. To rebuild that alliance will take just the kindof dialogue that Trumka has called for. Furthermore, Trumka’s speecharticulated a superb frame for such a dialogue. But realizing the objectives ofthat frame will require both labor and environmentalists to rethink someestablished positions and develop more effective solutions - and to do so indialogue with each other.

Thereis a “grand bargain” to be made here. Let organized labor put its full weightbehind the targets, timelines, and action plans necessary to prevent “irreversibleclimate change” with its “catastrophic consequences for human civilization.”Let the climate protection movement put its full weight behind the targets,timelines, and action plans necessary to end today’s devastating massunemployment by putting every available worker to work realizing those actionplans. Let us mobilize our human and material resources the way we did to fightWorld War II and to rebuild Europe with the Marshall Plan. The result willtransform the politics of climate - and the life prospects of the 99%.

Let the dialogue begin!

665. Carbon Dioxide Is 'Driving Fish Crazy'

2012-01-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

Rising levels of carbon dioxide is affecting fish
nervous system and brain

ScienceDaily, January 20, 2012

Rising human carbondioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of seafishes with serious consequences for their survival, an internationalscientific team has found.

Carbon dioxideconcentrations predicted to occur in the ocean by the end of this century willinterfere with fishes' ability to hear, smell, turn and evade predators, saysProfessor Philip Munday of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studiesand James Cook University.

"For severalyears our team have been testing the performance of baby coral fishes in seawater containing higher levels of dissolved CO₂ -- and it is nowpretty clear that they sustain significant disruption to their central nervoussystem, which is likely to impair their chances of survival," Prof. Mundaysays.

In their latestpaper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, Prof. Munday andcolleagues report world-first evidence that high CO₂ levels in seawater disrupts a key brain receptor in fish, causing marked changes in theirbehaviour and sensory ability.

"We've foundthat elevated CO₂ in the oceans can directly interfere with fishneurotransmitter functions, which poses a direct and previously unknown threatto sea life," Prof. Munday says.

Prof. Munday andhis colleagues began by studying how baby clown and damsel fishes performedalongside their predators in CO₂-enriched water. They found that,while the predators were somewhat affected, the baby fish suffered much higherrates of attrition.

"Our earlywork showed that the sense of smell of baby fish was harmed by higher CO₂in the water -- meaning they found it harder to locate a reef to settle on ordetect the warning smell of a predator fish. But we suspected there was muchmore to it than the loss of ability to smell."

The team thenexamined whether fishes' sense of hearing -- used to locate and home in onreefs at night, and avoid them during the day -- was affected. "The answeris, yes it was. They were confused and no longer avoided reef sounds during theday. Being attracted to reefs during daylight would make them easy meat forpredators."

Other work showedthe fish also tended to lose their natural instinct to turn left or right -- animportant factor in schooling behaviour which also makes them more vulnerable,as lone fish are easily eaten by predators.

"All this ledus to suspect it wasn't simply damage to their individual senses that was goingon -- but rather, that higher levels of carbon dioxide were affecting theirwhole central nervous system."

The team's latestresearch shows that high CO₂ directly stimulates a receptor in thefish brain called GABA-A, leading to a reversal in its normal function andover-excitement of certain nerve signals.

While most animalswith brains have GABA-A receptors, the team considers the effects of elevatedCO₂ are likely to be most felt by those living in water, as theyhave lower blood CO₂ levels normally. The main impact is likely tobe felt by some crustaceans and by most fishes, especially those which use alot of oxygen.

Prof. Munday saidthat around ₂.3 billion tonnes of human CO₂ emissionsdissolve into the world's oceans every year, causing changes in the chemicalenvironment of the water in which fish and other species live.

"We've nowestablished it isn't simply the acidification of the oceans that is causingdisruption -- as is the case with shellfish and plankton with chalky skeletons-- but the actual dissolved CO₂ itself is damaging the fishes'nervous systems."

Thework shows that fish with high oxygen consumption are likely to be mostaffected, suggesting the effects of high CO₂ may impair some speciesworse than others -- possibly including important species targeted by theworld's fishing industries.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Göran E. Nilsson, Danielle L. Dixson, Paolo Domenici, Mark I. McCormick, Christina Sørensen, Sue-Ann Watson, Philip L. Munday. Near-future carbon dioxide levels alter fish behaviour by interfering with neurotransmitter function. Nature Climate Change, 2012; DOI:10.1038/nclimate1352

664. Hands Off Iran

2012-01-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

An Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated on January 11

Statement by the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC)

on the Assassination of Iranian Scientist Mostafa AhmadiRoshan

and the Growing Threat of War Against the Islamic Republic ofIran

Another Iranian scientist has been assassinated in Iranby a car bombing. This is the fifth Iranian scientist targeted in Iran duringthe past two years. This is a dangerous escalation of the covert activitiesconducted by the CIA and Israeli intelligence and their domestic spies in Iranagainst the government and people of Iran.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, “I want tocategorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violenceinside Iran.” However, both the Israeli and the U.S. governments have admittedto covert activity in Iran. Irrespective of the actors, the assassination oflaw-abiding scientists living and working in Iran is a reprehensible act thatshould be condemned by all.

The fact is that the governments of the U.S. and Israelhave declared Iran to be their enemy and have publicly stated that they willuse all means possible, up to and including military attack, to stop theproduction of nuclear energy in Iran and to change the government of Iran. Tothis end, they have admitted to:

1 -Using hacking to disrupt nuclear energy facilities in Iran

2 -Conducting covert operations in Iran

3 -Deploying spy drones to Iran

4 -Imposing draconian sanctions and embargo against Iranian oil exports, bankingand trade

5 -Deploying U.S. nuclear super carrier battle groups with destroyers and nuclearsubmarines to the Persian Gulf

6 -Threatening Iran with military attack

7 - Planning to hold in January the largest ever jointmilitary exercises with Israel

The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists fallswithin the covert activities in disrupting nuclear energy production in Iran.In addition, it works to create an atmosphere of fear among other Iranianscientists who want to work in their field of study. This is similar to theright-wing assassinations of physicians in the U.S. who perform the procedureof abortion, which is legal in the U.S. The terrorists who kill scientists aimto make it difficult for the Iranian nuclear energy industry to find scientistswho would work there. However, the people of Iran have repeatedly stated theirresolve to defend their right to nuclear energy.

Considering that Hillary Clinton threatened Iran withmilitary attack, it is disingenuous for her to state that the U.S. deniesinvolvement in any act of violence within Iran. A military attack on Iran,especially an attack on Iran’s nuclear energy facilities, would produce resultssimilar to a nuclear attack. (U.S. Concerned Scientists report.) It would bethe most violent act against the people of Iran, resulting in hundreds ofthousands of civilian deaths.

All the actions listed above, sanctioned by the U.S.government, are intended to weaken the Iranian government and economy, createan atmosphere of fear and dissatisfaction among the people, increase unrest,and decrease trust, all in the service of making it easier for a militaryattack on Iran. Of course, so far these actions have only strengthened theIranian people’s resolve to protect their country against Imperialism.

Similar U.S. actions are aimed at any government whichfails to submit to the U.S. corporate domination. This disobedience or defianceby Iran is its real “crime.”

It is extremely important that all international andespecially U.S. antiwar and progressive organizations condemn these acts ofassassination of innocent citizens as well as all forms of violent andaggressive actions by U.S. and Israel.

1-Condemn the assassination of Iranian scientists

2 -End all sanctions against Iran

3 -End covert activities inside Iran

4 - End all war threats against Iran

“No war, No Sanctions, No Internal Intervention in Iran!”

January16, 2012

click here to donate to UNAC

Click here for the Facebook UNAC group.

663. Is Climate Change Education Facing the Same Hurdles as Evolution Education?

2012-01-20T17:00:00.000-08:00

A new bill in S. Dakota says climate change should
be taught as a debate not scientific consensus

By Sara Reardon, Science Insider, January 17, 2012

Is climate change education the new evolution,threatened in U.S. school districts and state education standards bywell-organized interest groups? A growing number of education advocates believeso, and yesterday, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in Oakland,California, which fights the teaching of creationism, announced that it's goingto take on climate change denial as well.

"It's not like we're bored," says NCSEDirector Eugenie Scott: Five state bills that would allow teaching intelligentdesign in schools have already surfaced in 2012. But after hearing anincreasing number of anecdotes about K-12 teachers being challenged about howthey taught climate science to their students, she says she began to see"parallels" between the two debates --namely, an ideological drivefrom pressure groups to "teach the controversy" where no scientificcontroversy exists. To get expertise in this area, NCSE hired climate andenvironmental education expert Mark McCaffrey as its new climate coordinatorand appointed Pacific Institute hydroclimatologist Peter Gleick to its board ofdirectors.

"There's a climate of confusion in this countryaround climate science," says McCaffrey, and NCSE's goal will be to ensurethat "teachers have the tools they need if they get pushback and feelintimidated." Recent surveys, such as one done among K-12 teachers inSeptember by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), suggest that attacks onclimate education are far from rare. NSTA found that over half of therespondents reported having encountered global warming scepticism from parents,and 26% had encountered it from administrators. And a December survey from theNational Earth Science Teachers' Association found that 36% of its 555 K-12 teachers who currently teachclimate science had been "influenced" to "teach thecontroversy."

NCSE expects this task to be much harder than fightingcreationism. "The forces arrayed against climate science are more numerousand much better funded," Scott says, and are better able to get theirmessage across in the mainstream media than creationism supporters.Organizations such as the Heartland Institute, which questions whether humanscause climate change, send out free educational materials to teachers andschool boards. As Science reported in September, teachers who already struggle withsmall science budgets and little time for teaching have no time to fend offideological attacks from students, parents, and administrators. Scott says thatone of NCSE's tasks will be to analyze these materials and educate teachers onwhy they are scientifically unsound. NSTA's survey found that many teachersfeel unprepared for global warming skepticism because of a lack of teachingtools.

Government organizations such as the National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), spurred by the 2007 America COMPETESAct, have already been making an increasing number of training programsavailable for teachers to learn about climate change from NOAA experts. Climateeducation, says Frank Niepold, education lead of NOAA's Climate Program Office,is "core stuff, not just a fashionable blip." For science educationto work, it has to be to be relevant, he says, and "you can't miss thistopic. The student body wants to know." Adds National Ocean Serviceeducation chief Peg Steffen, "If teachers feel pressure, it's frominquisitive students."

McCaffrey says that NCSE's goal will be to serve as a"clearing-house" for climate teaching programs. He and Scott say thatNCSE has no plans to wade into the politics of the issue: whether cap-and-tradesystems are better than switching to nuclear energy, for instance. The linebetween science and politics is not difficult to draw, Scott believes."Climate change is being promoted as pro-big government,anticapitalist," she says. "But it has to do with atmosphericchemistry."

McCaffrey believes he has his work cut out for him. "We doanticipate the pushback against good climate science will continue if notincrease."

662. Global Warming May Lead to Regional Cooling

2012-01-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

By Sid Perkins, Science Now, January 12, 2012

It seems counterintuitive, even ironic,that global warming could cause some regions to experience colder conditions.But a new study explains the Rube Goldberg-machine of climatic processes thatcan link warmer-than-average summers to harsh winter weather in some parts ofthe Northern Hemisphere.

In general, global average temperatures have been risingsince the late 1800s, but the most rapid warming has occurred in the past 40years. And average temperatures in the Arctic have been rising at nearly twicethe global rate, says Judah Cohen, a climate modeler at the consulting firmAtmospheric and Environmental Research in Lexington, Massachusetts. Despitethat trend, winters in the Northern Hemisphere have grown colder and moreextreme in southern Canada, the eastern United States, and much of northernEurasia, with England's record-setting cold spell in December 2010 as a case inpoint.

A close look at climate data from 1988 through 2010,including the extent of land and sea respectively covered by snow and ice,helps explain how global warming drives regional cooling, Cohen and his colleagues reportonline today in Environmental Research Letters. In their study, the researcherscombined climate and weather data from a variety of sources to estimateEurasian snow cover, and then they speculated about how that factor might haveinfluenced winter weather elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.

First, the strong warming in the Arctic in recentdecades, among other factors, has triggered widespread melting of sea ice. Moreopen water in the Arctic Ocean has led to more evaporation, which moisturizesthe overlying atmosphere, the researchers say. Previous studies have linkedwarmer-than-average summer months to increased cloudiness over the ocean duringthe following autumn. That, in turn, triggers increased snow coverage inSiberia as winter approaches. As it turns out, the researchers found, snowcover in October has the largest effect on climate in subsequent months.

That's because widespread autumn snow cover in Siberiastrengthens a semipermanent high-pressure system called, appropriately enough,the Siberian high, which reinforces a climate phenomenon called the ArcticOscillation and steers frigid air southward to midlatitude regions throughoutthe winter.

"This is completely plausible," says AnneNolin, a climate scientist at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Thecorrelations between warm summers and cold winters that originally led theresearchers to develop their idea don't prove cause and effect, but analyzingthese trends with climate models in future studies could help researchersbolster what Nolin calls "an interesting set of connections."

"Northern Eurasia is the largest snow-coveredlandmass in the world each winter," she notes. It only makes sense, sheargues, that it would have a big influence on the Northern Hemisphere'sclimate. Indeed, she adds, previous studies have noted the link betweenSiberian snow cover and climate in the northern Pacific.

The team's analyses suggest that climate cycles such as the ElNiño-Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the Atlanticmultidecadal oscillation can't explain the regional cooling trends seen in theNorthern Hemisphere during the past couple of decades as well as trends inSiberian snow cover do. If better accounts of autumn snow-cover variability areincorporated into climate models, scientists could provide more accuratewinter-weather forecasts, the researchers contend.

661. Ecuador: The Initiative to Keep Oil Underground in Exchange for Foreign Aid to Save Rainforest Moves Forward

2012-01-17T09:45:00.000-08:00

Germany pledged $50 millions

By Eric Marx, Science Insider, January 13, 2012

After receiving pledges totaling more than its goal of$100 million by a year-end deadline, the Ecuadorian government last weekannounced that it would move forward with the so-called Yasuni ITT Initiative,an innovative plan to leave untappedmore than 900 million barrels of crude oil beneath a pristine Amazonian naturereserve, inexchange for annual international donations. Last summer, there were fears thatGermany would back away from a nearly$50 million pledge to the effort, but $116 million in contributions has now beencollected from it, other foreign governments, individuals, and foundations,according to Ivonne Baki, the head of the Yasuni ITT Initiative. "We'vecreated amazing momentum," says Baki. That momentum will be needed as theEcuadorian government has now set a new goal of securing $291 million incontributions in both 2012 and 2013 to keep the initiative going.

Launched in mid-2010 after 3 years of technicalconsultation, the Yasuni ITT project was lauded by foreign governments andenvironmental groups as an innovative way to fight global warming: Notexploiting the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oilfields in Yasuni NationalPark will, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),prevent the emissions of around 410 million metric tons of carbon dioxide—equivalentto the annual emissions of France and accounting for 20% of Ecuador's known oilreserves. The project could also prevent the extermination of at least twoindigenous tribes that live in voluntary isolation, while conserving a forestedarea that scientists say is the most biodiverse place on earth.

But for a variety of reasons, donor countries initiallydeclined to support the initiative, which is supposed to be financed through atrust fund overseen by UNDP. Many have questioned commitment of Ecuador'sPresident Rafael Correa, citing expanded oil and mining in other parts of theAmazon. Still another impediment has been fear that the initiative's"avoided emissions" strategy would lead to similar plans beingconsidered as part of future global warming/climate change treaty negotiations.

This last concern appeared to scare off Germany'sSecretary for Economic Cooperation and Development Gudrun Kopp, who in June2011 told a German parliamentary commission that "a direct payment into afund of this type would set a precedent that could ultimately prove verycostly." Per the agreement signed with UNDP, however, Yasuni's precedentis "very limited in scale," says Pamela Martin, author of Oil in theSoil: The Politics of Paying to Preserve the Amazon. It only applies tocountries situated between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer which havetropical forests, a certified high level of biodiversity, and a credibleprogram for investment in sustainable energy programs, she notes. Germany isnow tentatively back in the initiative, agreeing to a one-time, nonrefundablecommitment of $47 million in bilateral technical assistance to be paid over 3years. The contribution is not an all out endorsement of Correa's vision, sayanalysts, because Germany's monies will not pass through the UNDP Trust Fundbut will be invested instead directly in the park. The other funding committedto the Ecuadorian Government amounted to approximately $69 million, includingpledges from provincial governments such as the Belgian region of Wallonia andthe French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. The Initiative was previously opento only governments and corporations pledging more $100,000. Now, individualsand businesses wishing to contribute amounts as small as $25 may becomeinvolved.

In Ecuador, Baki notes, a recent poll indicates thatnearly 90% of the public approves of the project. Baki says the next step is tolaunch an aggressive advertising, social networking, and promotional campaignfocused on Europe, North America, and Australasia. Insiders say the newstrategy is an attempt to put public pressure on elected officials, while alsodrawing upon the financial resources and discontent of a global population thatfinds itself increasingly frustrated with slow-paced climate negotiations."The next 2 years are going to be telling because we know there is nowfinally a budget to carry out a real publicity campaign," says KevinKoenig, the Amazon oil campaign coordinator for Amazon Watch based in Quito.

Koenig says environmental campaigners are deeply concerned aboutstepped up drilling plans in other parts of the Ecuadorian Amazon but they seemerit in supporting the Yasuni Initiative as a means by which to enable Ecuadorto extricate itself from its current "oil debt trap." At present,Ecuador relies upon oil income for more than half of its annual export revenue."If the world is so concerned about preserving biodiversity, protectingindigenous rights and trying to find solutions to climate change, this proposalmerits support," he adds. "It's not perfect but, regardless, it'simportant for Ecuador and the world."

660. The Paradox of Cuban Agriculture

2012-01-16T20:34:00.000-08:00

By Miguel A. Altieri and Fernando R. Funes-Monzote, Monthly Review, January 8, 2012

WhenCuba faced the shock of lost trade relations with the Soviet Bloc in the early1990s, food production initially collapsed due to the loss of importedfertilizers, pesticides, tractors, parts, and petroleum. The situation was sobad that Cuba posted the worst growth in per capita food production in all ofLatin America and the Caribbean. But the island rapidly re-oriented itsagriculture to depend less on imported synthetic chemical inputs, and became aworld-class case of ecological agriculture.1 This was such a successful turnaround that Cuba rebounded toshow the best food production performance in Latin America and the Caribbeanover the following period, a remarkable annual growth rate of 4.2 percent percapita from 1996 through 2005, a period in which the regional average was 0percent.2

Muchof the production rebound was due to the adoption since the early 1990s of arange of agrarian decentralization policies that encouraged forms ofproduction, both individual as well as cooperative—Basic Units of CooperativeProduction (UBPC) and Credit and Service Cooperatives (CCS). Moreover, recentlythe Ministry of Agriculture announced the dismantling of all “inefficient Statecompanies” as well as support for creating 2,600 new small urban and suburbanfarms, and the distribution of the use rights (in usufruct) to the majority ofestimated 3 million hectares of unused State lands. Under these regulations,decisions on resource use and strategies for food production andcommercialization will be made at the municipal level, while the centralgovernment and state companies will support farmers by distributing necessaryinputs and services.3 Through the mid-1990s some 78,000 farms were given in usufructto individuals and legal entities. More than 100,000 farms have now beendistributed, covering more than 1 million hectares in total. These new farmersare associated with the CCS following the campesino production model. Thegovernment is busy figuring out how to accelerate the processing of an unprecedentednumber of land requests.4

Theland redistribution program has been supported by solid research- extensionsystems that have played key roles in the expansion of organic and urbanagriculture and the massive artisanal production and deployment of biologicalinputs for soil and pest management. The opening of local agricultural marketsand the existence of strong grassroots organisations supporting farmers—forexample, the National Association of Small Scale Farmers (ANAP, AsociaciónNacional de Agricultores Pequeños), the Cuban Association of Animal Production(ACPA, Asociación Cubana de Producción Animal), and the Cuban Association ofAgricultural and Forestry Technicians (ACTAF, Asociación Cubana de TécnicosAgrícolas y Forestales)—also contributed to this achievement.

Butperhaps the most important changes that led to the recovery of food sovereigntyin Cuba occurred in the peasant sector which in 2006, controlling only 25percent of the agricultural land, produced over 65 percent of the country’sfood.5 Most peasants belong to the ANAP and almost all of them belongto cooperatives. The production of vegetables typically produced by peasantsfell drastically between 1988 to 1994, but by 2007 had rebounded to well over1988 levels (see Table 1). This production increase came despite using 72percent fewer agricultural chemicals in 2007 than in 1988. Similar patterns canbe seen for other peasant crops like beans, roots, and tubers.

Cuba’sachievements in urban agriculture are truly remarkable—there are 383,000 urbanfarms, covering 50,000 hectares of otherwise unused land and producing morethan 1.5 million tons of vegetables with top urban farms reaching a yield of 20kg/m2 per year of edible plantmaterial using no synthetic chemicals—equivalent to a hundred tons per hectare.Urban farms supply 70 percent or more of all the fresh vegetables consumed incities such as Havana and Villa Clara.

Table 1. Changesin Crop Production and Agrochemical Use

Crop	Percent production change		Percent change in agrochemical use
	1988 to 1994	1988 to 2007	1988 to 2007
General vegetables	-65	+145	-72
Beans	-77	+351	-55
Roots and tubers	-42	+145	-85

Source: Peter Rosset, Braulio Machín-Sosa, Adilén M.Roque-Jaime, and Dana R. Avila-Lozano, “The Campesino-to-Campesino AgroecologyMovement of ANAP in Cuba,” Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (2011): 161-91.

All over the world, and especially in Latin America, theisland’s agroecological production levels and the associated research effortsalong with innovative farmer organizational schemes have been observed withgreat interest. No other country in the world has achieved this level ofsuccess with a form of agriculture that uses the ecological services ofbiodiversity and reduces food miles, energy use, and effectively closes localproduction and consumption cycles. However, some people talk about the “Cubanagriculture paradox”: if agroecological advances in the country are so great,why does Cuba still import substantial amounts of food? If effective biologicalcontrol methods are widely available and used, why is the government releasingtransgenic plants such as Bt crops that produce their own pesticide using genesderived from bacteria?

An article written by Dennis Avery from the Center forGlobal Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, “Cubans Starve on Diet of Lies,”helped fuel the debate around the paradox. He stated:

The Cubans told the world they hadheroically learned to feed themselves without fuel or farm chemicals aftertheir Soviet subsidies collapsed in the early 1990s. They bragged about their“peasant cooperatives,” their biopesticides and organic fertilizers. Theyheralded their earthworm culture and the predator wasps they unleashed ondestructive caterpillars. They boasted about the heroic ox teams they hadtrained to replace tractors. Organic activists all over the world swooned. Now,a senior Ministry of Agriculture official has admitted in the Cuban press that84 percent of Cuba’s current food consumption is imported, according to ouragricultural attaché in Havana. The organic success was all a lie.6

Avery has used this misinformation to promote a campaigndiscrediting authors who studied and informed about the heroic achievements ofCuban people in the agricultural field: he has accused these scientists ofbeing communist liars.

The Truth AboutFood Imports in Cuba

Avery referred to statements of Magalys Calvo, then ViceMinister of the Economy and Planning Ministry, who said in February 2007 that84 percent of items “in the basic food basket” at that time were imported.However, these percentages represent only the food that is distributed throughregulated government channels by means of a ration card. Overall data show thatCuba’s food import dependency has been dropping for decades, despite briefupturns due to natural and human-made disasters. The best time series availableon Cuban food import dependency (see Chart 1) shows that it actually declinedbetween 1980 and 1997, aside from a spike in the early 1990s, when traderelations with the former Socialist Bloc collapsed.7

Chart 1. Cuba FoodImport Dependency, 1980–1997

Source: José Alvarez, The Issue of Food Security in Cuba,University of Florida Extension Report FE483, downloaded July 20, 2011 from http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/FE/FE48300.pdf.

However, Chart 2 indicates a much more nuanced view ofCuba’s agricultural strengths and weaknesses after more than a decade oftechnological bias toward ecological farming techniques. Great successes haveclearly been achieved in root crops (a staple of the Cuban diet), sugar andother sweeteners, vegetables, fruits, eggs, and seafood. Meat is anintermediate case, while large amounts of cooking oil, cereals, and legumes(principally rice and wheat for human consumption, and corn and soybeans forlivestock) continue to be imported. The same is true for powdered milk, whichdoes not appear on the graph. Total import dependency, however, is a mere 16percent—ironically the exact inverse of the 84 percent figure cited by Avery.It is also important to mention that twenty-three other countries in the LatinAmerican-Caribbean region are also net food importers.8

Chart 2. ImportDependence For Selected Foods, 2003

Source: Calculated from FAO Commodity Balances, Cuba,2003, http://faostat.fao.org.

There is considerable debate concerning current fooddependency in Cuba. Dependency rose in the 2000s as imports from the UnitedStates grew and hurricanes devastated its agriculture. After being hit by threeespecially destructive hurricanes in 2008, Cuba satisfied national needs byimporting 55 percent of its total food, equivalent to approximately $2.8billion. However, as the world food price crisis drives prices higher, thegovernment has reemphasized food self-sufficiency. Regardless of whether foodhas been imported or produced within the country, it is important to recognizethat Cuba has been generally able to adequately feed its people. According tothe UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Cuba’s average daily percapita dietary energy supply in 2007 (the last year available) was over 3,200kcal, the highest of all Latin American and Caribbean nations.9

Different Models:Agroecology versus Industrial Agriculture

Under this new scenario the importance of contributionsof ANAP peasants to reducing food imports should become strategic, but is it?Despite the indisputable advances of sustainable agriculture in Cuba andevidence of the effectiveness of alternatives to the monoculture model,interest persists among some leaders in high external input systems withsophisticated and expensive technological packages. With the pretext of“guaranteeing food security and reducing food imports,” these specific programspursue “maximization” of crop and livestock production and insist on going backto monoculture methods—and therefore dependent on synthetic chemical inputs,large scale machinery, and irrigation—despite proven energy inefficiency andtechnological fragility. In fact, many resources are provided by internationalcooperation (i.e., from Venezuela) dedicated to “protect or boost agriculturalareas” where a more intensive agriculture is practiced for crops like potatoes,rice, soybean, and vegetables.

These “protected” areas for large-scale,industrial-style agricultural production represent less than 10 percent of thecultivated land. Millions of dollars are invested in pivot irrigation systems,machinery, and other industrial agricultural technologies: a seductive modelwhich increases short-term production but generates high long-termenvironmental and socioeconomic costs, while replicating a model that failedeven before 1990.

Last year it was announced that the pesticide enterprise“Juan Rodríguez Gómez” in the municipality of Artemisa, Havana, will producesome 100,000 liters of the herbicide glyphosate in 2011.10 In early 2011 a Cuban TV News program informedthe population about the Cubasoy project. The program, “Bienvenida la Soya,”reported that “it is possible to transform lands that over years were coveredby marabú [a thorny invasive leguminous tree] with soybean monoculture in thesouth of the Ciego de Ávila province.” Supported by Brazilian credits andtechnology, the project covers more than 15,000 hectares of soybean grown inrotation with maize and aims at reaching 40,500 hectares in 2013, with a totalof 544 center pivot irrigation systems installed by 2014. Soybean yields rankbetween 1.2 tons per hectare (1,100 lbs per acre) under rainfed conditions andup to 1.97 tons per hectare (1,700 lbs per acre) under irrigation. It is notclear if the soybean varieties used are transgenic, but the maize variety isthe Cuban transgenic FR-Bt1. Ninety percent of machinery is imported fromBrazil—“large tractors, direct seeding machines, and equipment for cropprotection”—and considerable infrastructure investments have been made forirrigation, roads, technical support, processing, and transport.

The Debate OverTransgenic Crops

Cuba has invested millions in biotechnological researchand development for agriculture through its Center for Genetic Engineering andBiotechnology (CIGB) and a network of institutions across the country. Cubanbiotechnology is free from corporate control and intellectual property-rightregimes that exist in other countries. Cuban biotechnologists affirm that theirbiosafety system sets strict biological and environmental security norms. Giventhis autonomy and advantages biotechnological innovations could efficiently beapplied to solve problems such as viral crop diseases or drought tolerance forwhich agroecological solutions are not yet available. In 2009 the CIGB plantedin Yagüajay, Sancti Spiritus, three hectares of genetically modified corn(transgenic corn FR-Bt1) on an experimental basis. This variety is supposed tosuppress populations of the damaging larval stage of the “palomilla del maíz”moth (Spodoptera frugiperda, also known as the fall armyworm). By 2009 a totalof 6,000 hectares were planted with the transgenic (also referred to asgenetically modified, or GM) variety across several provinces. From anagroecological perspective it is perplexing that the first transgenic varietyto be tested in Cuba is Bt corn, given that in the island there are so manybiological control alternatives to regulate lepidopteran pests. The diversityof local maize varieties include some that exhibit moderate-to-high levels ofpest resistance, offering significant opportunities to increase yields withconventional plant breeding and known agroecological management strategies.Many centers for multiplication of insect parasites and pathogens (CREEs,Centros de Reproducción de Entomófagos y Entomopatógenos) produce Bacillusthuringiensis (a microbial insecticide) and Trichogramma (small wasps), bothhighly effective against moths such as the palomilla. In addition, mixing cornwith other crops such as beans or sweet potatoes in polycultures producessignificantly less pest attack than maize grown in monocultures. This alsoincreases the land equivalent ratio (growing more total crops in a given areaof land) and protects the soil.

When transgenic Bt maize was planted in 2008 as a testcrop, researchers and farmers from the agroecological movement expressedconcern. Several people warned that the release of transgenic crops endangeredagrobiodiversity and contradicted the government’s own agricultural productionplans by diverting the focus from agroecological farming that had beenstrategically adopted as a policy in Cuba. Others felt that biotechnology wasgeared towards the interests of the multinational corporations and the market.Taking into account its potential environmental and public health risks, itwould be better for Cuba to continue emphasizing agroecological alternativesthat have proven to be safe and have allowed the country to produce food underdifficult economic and climatic circumstances.

The main demonstrated advantage of GM crops has been tosimplify the farming process, allowing farmers to work more land. GM crops thatresist herbicides (such as “Roundup Ready” corn and soybeans) and that producetheir own insecticide (such as Bt corn) generally do not yield any more than comparablenon-GM crops. However, using these GM crops along with higher levels ofmechanization (especially larger tractors) have now made it possible for thesize of a family corn and soybean farm in the U.S. Midwest to increase fromaround 240 hectares (600 acres) to around 800 hectares (2,000 acres).

In September 2010 a meeting of experts concerned abouttransgenic crops was convened with board and staff members from the NationalCenter for Biological Security and the Office for Environmental Regulation andNuclear Security (Centro Nacional de Seguridad Biológica and the Oficina deRegulación Ambiental y Seguridad Nuclear), institutions entrusted withlicensing GM crops. The experts issued a statement calling for a moratorium onGM crops until more information was available and society has a chance todebate the environmental and health effects of the technology. However, untilnow there has been no response to this request. One positive outcome of theyear-long debate on the inconsistency of planting FR-Bt1 transgenic corn inCuba was the open recognition by the authorities of the potential devastatingconsequences of GM crops for the small farmer sector. Although it appears thatthe use of transgenic corn will be limited exclusively to the areas of Cubasoyand other conventional areas under strict supervision, this effort is highlyquestionable.11

The Paradox’sOutcome—What Does the Future Hold?

The instability in international markets and theincrease in food prices in a country somewhat dependent on food importsthreatens national sovereignty. This reality has prompted high officials tomake declarations emphasizing the need to prioritize food production based onlocally available resources.12 It is in fact paradoxical that, toachieve food security in a period of economic growth, most of the resources arededicated to importing foods or promoting industrial agriculture schemesinstead of stimulating local production by peasants. There is a cyclical returnto support conventional agriculture by policy makers when the financialsituation improves, while sustainable approaches and agroecology, considered as“alternatives,” are only supported under scenarios of economic scarcity. Thiscyclical mindset strongly undermines the advances achieved with agroecology andorganic farming since the economic collapse in 1990.

Cuban agriculture currently experiences two extremefood-production models: an intensive model with high inputs, and another,beginning at the onset of the special period, oriented towards agroecology andbased on low inputs. The experience accumulated from agroecological initiativesin thousands of small-and-medium scale farms constitutes a valuable startingpoint in the definition of national policies to support sustainableagriculture, thus rupturing with a monoculture model prevalent for almost fourhundred years. In addition to Cuba being the only country in the world that wasable to recover its food production by adopting agroecological approaches underextreme economic difficulties, the island exhibits several characteristics thatserve as fundamental pillars to scale up agroecology to unprecedented levels:

Cuba represents 2 percent of the Latin Americanpopulation but has 11 percent of the scientists in the region. There are about140,000 high-level professionals and medium-level technicians, dozens ofresearch centres, agrarian universities and their networks, governmentinstitutions such as the Ministry of Agriculture, scientific organizationssupporting farmers (i.e. ACTAF), and farmers organizations such as ANAP.

Cuba has sufficient land to produce enough food with agroecologicalmethods to satisfy the nutritional needs of its eleven million inhabitants.13 Despite soil erosion, deforestation, andloss of biodiversity during the past fifty years—as well as during the previousfour centuries of extractive agriculture—the country’s conditions remainexceptionally favorable for agriculture. Cuba has six million hectares offairly level land and another million gently sloping hectares that can be usedfor cropping. More than half of this land remains uncultivated, and theproductivity of both land and labor, as well as the efficiency of resource use,in the rest of this farm area are still low. If all the peasant farms(controlling 25 percent of land) and all the UBPC (controlling 42 percent ofland) adopted diversified agroecological designs, Cuba would be able to produceenough to feed its population, supply food to the tourist industry, and evenexport some food to help generate foreign currency. All this production wouldbe supplemented with urban agriculture, which is already reaching significantlevels of production.

About one third of all peasant families, some 110,000families, have joined ANAP within its Farmer to Farmer Agroecological Movement(MACAC, Movimiento Agroecológico Campesino a Campesino). It uses participatorymethods based on local peasant needs and allows for the socialization of therich pool of family and community agricultural knowledge that is linked totheir specific historical conditions and identities. By exchanging innovationsamong themselves, peasants have been able to make dramatic strides in foodproduction relative to the conventional sector, while preservingagrobiodiversity and using much lower amounts of agrochemicals.

Observations of agricultural performance after extremeclimatic events in the last two decades have revealed the resiliency of peasantfarms to climate disasters. Forty days after Hurricane Ike hit Cuba in 2008,researchers conducted a farm survey in the provinces of Holguin and Las Tunasand found that diversified farms exhibited losses of 50 percent compared to 90to 100 percent in neighboring farms growing monocultures. Likewiseagroecologically managed farms showed a faster productive recovery (80 to 90percent forty days after the hurricane) than monoculture farms.14 These evaluations emphasize theimportance of enhancing plant diversity and complexity in farming systems toreduce vulnerability to extreme climatic events, a strategy entrenched amongCuban peasants.

Most of the production efforts have been orientedtowards reaching food sovereignty, defined as the right of everyone to haveaccess to safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food in sufficientquantity and quality to sustain a healthy life with full human dignity.However, given the expected increase in the cost of fuel and inputs, the Cubanagroecological strategy also aims at enhancing two other types ofsovereignties. Energy sovereignty is the right for all people to have access tosufficient energy within ecological limits from appropriate sustainable sourcesfor a dignified life. Technological sovereignty refers to the capacity toachieve food and energy sovereignty by nurturing the environmental servicesderived from existing agrobiodiversity and using locally available resources.

Elements of the three sovereignties—food, energy, andtechnology—can be found in hundreds of small farms, where farmers are producing70–100 percent of the necessary food for their family consumption whileproducing surpluses sold to the market, allowing them to obtain income (forexample, Finca del Medio, CCS Reinerio Reina in Sancti Spiritus; Plácido farm,CCS José Machado; Cayo Piedra, in Matanzas, belonging to CCS José Martí; andSan José farm, CCS Dionisio San Román in Cienfuegos). These levels ofproductivity are obtained using local technologies such as worm composting andreproduction of beneficial native microorganisms together with diversifiedproduction systems such as polycultures, rotations, animal integration intocrop farms, and agroforestry. Many farmers are also using integratedfood/energy systems and generate their own sources of energy using human andanimal labor, biogas, and windmills, in addition to producing biofuel cropssuch as jatrophaintercropped with cassava.15

Conclusions

A rich knowledge of agroecology science and practiceexists in Cuba, the result of accumulated experiences promoted by researchers,professors, technicians, and farmers supported by ACTAF, ACPA, and ANAP. Thislegacy is based on the experiences within rural communities that containsuccessful “agroecological lighthouses” from which principles have radiated outto help build the basis of an agricultural strategy that promotes efficiency,diversity, synergy, and resiliency. By capitalizing on the potential ofagroecology, Cuba has been able to reach high levels of production using lowamounts of energy and external inputs, with returns to investment on researchseveral times higher than those derived from industrial and biotechnologicalapproaches that require major equipment, fuel, and sophisticated laboratories.

The political will expressed in the writings anddiscourses of high officials about the need to prioritize agriculturalself-sufficiency must translate into concrete support for the promotion ofproductive and energy-efficient initiatives in order to reach the threesovereignties at the local (municipal) level, a fundamental requirement tosustain a planet in crisis.

By creating more opportunities for strategic alliancesbetween ANAP, ACPA, ACTAF, and research centers, many pilot projects could belaunched in key municipalities, testing different agroecological technologiesthat promote the three sovereignties, as adapted to each region’s specialenvironmental and socioeconomic conditions. These initiatives should adopt thefarmer-to-farmer methodology that transcends top-down research and extensionparadigms, allowing farmers and researchers to learn and innovate collectively.The integration of university professors and students in such experimentationand evaluation processes would enhance scientific knowledge for the conversionto an ecologically based agriculture. It would also help improve agroecologicaltheory, which would in turn benefit the training of future generations ofprofessionals, technicians, and farmers.

The agroecological movement constantly urges those Cubanpolicy makers with a conventional, Green Revolution, industrial farming mindsetto consider the reality of a small island nation facing an embargo andpotentially devastating hurricanes. Given these realities, embracingagroecological approaches and methods throughout the country’s agriculture canhelp Cuba achieve food sovereignty while maintaining its political autonomy.

Notes

1. ↩ Peter Rosset andMedea Benjamin, eds., The Greening of the Revolution (Ocean Press: Melbourne,Australia, 1994); Fernando Funes, et. al., eds., Sustainable Agriculture andResistance (Oakland: Food First Books, 2002); Braulio Machín-Sosa, et. al., RevoluciónAgroecológica (ANAP: La Habana, 2010).

2. ↩ Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The State of Food andAgriculture 2006 (Rome: FAO, 2006), http://fao.org.

3. ↩ MINAG (Ministeriode la Agricultura), Informe del Ministerio de la Agricultura a la ComisiónAgroalimentaria de la Asamblea Nacional, May 14, 2008 (MINAG: Havana, Cuba,2008).

4. ↩ Ana MargaritaGonzález, “Tenemos que dar saltos cualitativos,” Interview with Orlando LugoFonte, Trabajadores, June 22, 2009, 6.

5. ↩ Raisa Pagés,“Necesarios cambios en relaciones con el sector cooperativo-campesino,” Granma,December 18, 2006, 3.

6. ↩ Dennis T. Avery,“Cubans Starve on Diet of Lies,” April 2, 2009, http://cgfi.org.

7. ↩ Fernando Funes,Miguel A. Altieri, and Peter Rosset, “The Avery Diet: The Hudson’s InstituteMisinformation Campaign Against Cuban Agriculture,” May 2009, http://globalalternatives.org.

8. ↩ FAO, Ibid.

9. ↩ FAOSTAT Food SupplyDatabase, http://faostat.fao.org,accessed July 28, 2011.

10. ↩ René Montalván,“Plaguicidas de factura nacional,” El Habanero, November 23, 2010, 4.

11. ↩ FernandoFunes-Monzote and Eduardo F. Freyre Roach, eds., Transgénicos ¿Qué se gana?¿Qué se pierde? Textos para un debate en Cuba (Havana: Publicaciones Acuario,2009), http://landaction.org.

12. ↩ Raúl Castro,“Mientras mayores sean las dificultades, más exigencia, disciplina y unidad serequieren,” Granma, February 25, 2008, 4–6.

13. ↩ FernandoFunes-Monzote, Farming Like We’re Here to Stay, PhD dissertation, WageningenUniversity, Netherlands, 2008.

14. ↩ BraulioMachin-Sosa, et. al., Revolución Agroecológica: el Movimiento de Campesino aCampesino de la ANAP en Cuba (ANAP: La Habana, 2010).

15. ↩ FernandoFunes-Monzote, et. al., “Evaluación inicial de sistemas integrados para laproducción de alimentos y energía en Cuba,” Pastos y Forrajes (forthcoming,2011).

Miguel A. Altieri (agroeco3 [at] berkeley.edu) is Profesor ofAgroecology at the University of California, Berkeley and President of theLatin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA). He is the author ofmore than 250 journal articles and twelve books. Fernando R. Funes-Monzote(mgahonam [at] enet.cu) is currently a researcher at the Experimental StationIndio Hatuey, University of Matanzas, Cuba. He is one of the founding membersof the Cuban Association of Organic Agriculture.

659. Ecocide: Lethal Honeybee Epidemic Nearing a ‘Critical Point’

2012-01-15T09:25:00.000-08:00

States reporting honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder (in red)

By Claire Thomson, Grist, January 13, 2012

Anyone who's been stung by a bee knows they can inflictan outsized pain for such tiny insects. It makes a strange kind of sense, then,that their demise would create an outsized problem for the food system byplacing the more than 70 cropsthey pollinate -- from almonds to apples to blueberries -- in peril.

Although news about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) hasdied down, commercial beekeepers have seen average population losses of about30 percent each year since 2006, said Paul Towers, of the Pesticide ActionNetwork. Towers was one of the organizers of a conference that brought together beekeepers and environmental groups this week to tackle the challengesfacing the beekeeping industry and the agricultural economy by proxy.

"We are inching our way toward a critical tippingpoint," said Steve Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee AdvisoryBoard (NHBAB) and a beekeeper for 35 years. Last year he had so many abnormalbee die-offs that he'll qualify for disaster relief from the U.S. Department ofAgriculture (USDA).

In addition to continued reports of CCD -- a stillsomewhat mysterious phenomenon in which entire bee colonies literallydisappear, alien-abduction style, leaving not even their dead bodies behind --bee populations are suffering poor health in general, and experiencing shorterlife spans and diminished vitality. And while parasites, pathogens, and habitatloss can deal blows to bee health, research increasingly points to pesticidesas the primary culprit.

"In the industry we believe pesticides play animportant role in what's going on," said Dave Hackenberg, co-chair of theNHBAB and a beekeeper in Pennsylvania.

Of particular concern is a group of pesticides,chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonicsare used to treat seeds, so that they're absorbed by the plant's vascularsystem, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that cometo collect pollen. Virtually all of today's genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonics. The chemical industry alleges that bees don't like to collectcorn pollen, but new research shows that not only do bees indeed forage incorn, but they also have multiple other routes of exposure to neonics.

The Purdue University study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found high levels of clothianidinin planter exhaust spewed during the spring sowing of treated maize seed. Italso found neonics in the soil of unplanted fields nearby those planted with Btcorn, on dandelions growing near those fields, in dead bees found near hiveentrances, and in pollen stored in the hives.

Evidence already pointed to the presence ofneonic-contaminated pollen as a factor in CCD. As Hackenberg explained, "The insects start taking [thepesticide] home, and it contaminates everywhere the insect came from."These new revelations about the pervasiveness of neonics in bees' habitats onlystrengthen the case against using the insecticides.

The irony, of course, is that farmers use thesechemicals to protect their crops from destructive insects, but in so doing,they harm other insects essential to their crops' production -- a catch-22 thatHackenberg said speaks to the fact that "we have become a nation driven bythe chemical industry." In addition to beekeeping, he owns two farms, andeven when crop analysts recommend spraying pesticides on his crops to kill anaphid population, for example, he knows that "if I spray, I'm going tokill all the beneficial insects." But most farmers, lacking Hackenberg'sawareness of bee populations, follow the advice of the crop adviser -- who,these days, is likely to be paid by the chemical industry, rather than by astate university or another independent entity.

Beekeepers have already teamed up with groupsrepresenting the almond and blueberry industries -- both of which depend onhoney bee pollination -- to tackle the need for education among farmers."A lot of [farm groups] are recognizing that we need more resourcesdevoted to pollinator protection," Ellis said. "We need that samelevel of commitment on a national basis, from our USDA and EPA and theagricultural chemical industry."

Unfortunately, it was the EPA itself that green-litclothianidin and other neonics for commercial use, despite its own scientists' clear warnings about the chemicals' effects on beesand other pollinators. That doesn't bode well for the chances of gettingneonics off the market now, even in light of the Purdue study's findings.

"The agency has, in most cases, sided withpesticide manufacturers and worked to fast-track the approval of new products,and failed in cases when there's clear evidence of harm to take those productsoff the market," Towers said.

Since this is an election year -- a time when no onewants to make Big Ag (and its money) mad -- beekeepers may have to sufferanother season of losses before there's any hope of action on the EPA's part.But when one out of every three bites of food on Americans' plates resultsdirectly from honey bee pollination, there's no question that the fate of theseinsects will determine our own as eaters.

Ellis,for his part, thinks that figuring out a way to solve the bee crisis could be acatalyst for larger reform within our agriculture system. "If we canprotect that pollinator base, it's going to have ripple effects ... forwildlife, for human health," he said. "It will bring up subjects thatneed to be looked at, of groundwater and surface water -- all the connectedsubjects associated [with] chemical use and agriculture."

658. Labor Practices of Apple's Suppliers Come to Light

2012-01-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

By Nick Wingfield and Charles Duhigg, The New York Times, January 13, 2012

Apple released a list of its major suppliersfor the first time on Friday, bringing the company up to par with other bigAmerican corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Nike, which havereleased similar lists.

The list accompanied a report detailing troubling practicesinside many of the technology giant’s suppliers. Apple said audits revealedthat 93 supplier facilities had records indicating that over half of workersexceeded a 60-hour weekly working limit. Apple said 108 facilities did not payproper overtime as required by law. In 15 facilities, Apple found foreigncontract workers who had paid excessive recruitment fees to labor agencies.

And though Apple said it mandated changes at those suppliers, and someshowed improvements, in aggregate, many types of lapses remained at generallevels that have persisted for years.

Labor rights groups, journalists and academics have long asked Appleto reveal the names of its suppliers. While other companies have published thenames of firms providing parts and services, Apple has resisted, with someinside the company citing the firm’s culture of secrecy.

Judy Gearhart, executive director of the International LaborRights Forum, an advocacy group for workers’ rights, wasdisappointed Apple did not reveal the location of the suppliers on its list,complicating outside efforts to monitor the progress at the factories. Someplants on the list are relatively unknown, with Web sites that do not listwhere facilities are situated.

“It’s a bit of a half-step really to say, ‘Here are the names of thefactories, go look through a haystack,’ ” Ms. Gearhart said. “But it’s astart.”

Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, declined to comment beyond thereport.

The calls for Apple to disclose suppliers became particularly acuteafter a series of deaths and accidents in recent years.

In the last two years at companies supplying services to Apple, 137employees were seriously injured after cleaning iPad screens with n-hexane, a toxic chemicalthat can cause nerve damage and paralysis; numerous workers have committedsuicide, or fallen or jumped from buildings in a manner suggesting suicideattempts; and in two separate explosions caused by dust from polishing iPadcases, four were killed and 77 injured.

Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., posted the supplier list on its Website on Friday as part of something it calls its supplier responsibility progress report, adocument typically published in February. Apple provides aggregate statisticsof audits examining labor, discrimination, worker health and safety,environmental and other practices.

The list consists of 156 companies, accounting for 97 percent of whatApple says it pays to its suppliers. Apple’s tally of its suppliers includesmany big-name companies like Intel and Nvidia, both makers of chips for Apple’sMacintosh computers, along with other parts makers like Samsung Electronics,Toshiba and Panasonic. The list also includes less recognized companies like ZeniyaAluminum Engineering, Jin Li Mould Manufacturing and UnisteelTechnology.

But the list excludes many of the secondary suppliers — companies thatprovide parts to firms that directly contract with Apple. For instance, thoughthe American glassmaker Corning has manufactured the strengthened glass iniPhones, it does not appear on the list because it technically does notcontract with Apple, but with an intermediary that finishes the glass before itis delivered to an assembly factory.

Apple said 229 audits were conducted as part of this year’s supplierresponsibility report, an 80 percent increase over the number the year before.The company said the facilities where repeat audits were done had shown fewerviolations.

In an e-mail to Apple employees, Timothy D. Cook, the chief executive,said Apple had used its influence to improve living conditions for the peoplewho make its products, including employee housing. “To meet our requirements,many suppliers have renovated their dorms or built new ones altogether,” hewrote.

This is the sixth such report Apple has issued. The company beganconducting audits and publishing reports after news articles in 2006 showedpoor working conditions at Foxconn, a Chinese manufacturer of Apple products.

Apple said in the report that it recently became the first technologycompany to join the Fair Labor Association, a nonprofit group thataims to improve conditions in factories around the world. Apple said it wouldallow the association’s auditing team to gauge the performance of Apple’ssuppliers against a code of conduct and publish the results.

“We welcome Apple’s commitment to greater transparency and independentoversight, and we hope its participation will set a new standard for theelectronics industry,” Auret van Heerden, the association’s president, said ina statement.

Jeff Ballinger, a global labor activist, said he was skeptical thattransparency alone would change the behavior of Apple’s suppliers, unless Applewas willing to pay more. “They can say forced overtime is a big problem, canyou give Saturday afternoons off?” he said, adding that the factories’“response is going to be raise the prices you give us.”

“Thatthey don’t want to do,” he said of Apple.

657. Give Guantánamo Back to Cuba

2012-01-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

Guantánamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba

By Jonathan M. Hansen, The New York Times, January 10, 2012

IN the 10 years since the Guantánamo detention camp opened, theanguished debate over whether to shutter the facility — or make it permanent —has obscured a deeper failure that dates back more than a century andimplicates all Americans: namely, our continued occupation of Guantánamoitself. It is past time to return this imperialist enclave to Cuba.

From the moment the United States government forced Cuba to lease theGuantánamo Bay naval base to us, in June 1901, the American presence there hasbeen more than a thorn in Cuba’s side. It has served to remind the world ofAmerica’s long history of interventionist militarism. Few gestures would haveas salutary an effect on the stultifying impasse in American-Cuban relations ashanding over this coveted piece of land.

The circumstances by which the United States came to occupy Guantánamoare as troubling as its past decade of activity there. In April 1898, Americanforces intervened in Cuba’s three-year-old struggle for independence when itwas all but won, thus transforming the Cuban War of Independence into whatAmericans are still wont to call the Spanish-American War. American officialsthen excluded the Cuban Army from the armistice and denied Cuba a seat at theParis peace conference. “There is so much natural anger and grief throughoutthe island,” the Cuban general Máximo Gómez remarked in January 1899, after thepeace treaty was signed, “that the people haven’t really been able to celebratethe triumph of the end of their former rulers’ power.”

Curiously, the United States’ declaration of war on Spain included theassurance that America did not seek “sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control”over Cuba and intended “to leave the government and control of the island toits people.”

But after the war, strategic imperatives took precedence over Cubanindependence. The United States wanted dominion over Cuba, along with navalbases from which to exercise it.

Enter Gen. Leonard Wood, whom President William McKinley had namedmilitary governor of Cuba, bearing provisions that became known as the PlattAmendment. Two were particularly odious: one guaranteed the United States theright to intervene at will in Cuban affairs; the other provided for the sale orlease of naval stations. Juan Gualberto Gómez, a leading delegate to the CubanConstitutional Convention, said the amendment would render Cubans “a vassal people.”Foreshadowing the Cuban Missile Crisis, he presciently warned that foreignbases on Cuban soil would only draw Cuba “into conflict not of our own makingand in which we have no stake.”

But it was an offer Cuba could not refuse, as Wood informed the delegates.The alternative to the amendment was continued occupation. The Cubans got themessage. “There is, of course, little or no real independence left Cuba underthe Platt Amendment,” Wood remarked to McKinley’s successor, TheodoreRoosevelt, in October 1901, soon after the Platt Amendment was incorporatedinto the Cuban Constitution. “The more sensible Cubans realize this and feelthat the only consistent thing now is to seek annexation.”

But with Platt in place, who needed annexation? Over the next twodecades, the United States repeatedly dispatched Marines based at Guantánamo toprotect its interests in Cuba and block land redistribution. Between 1900 and1920, some 44,000 Americans flocked to Cuba, boosting capital investment on theisland to just over $1 billion from roughly $80 million and prompting onejournalist to remark that “little by little, the whole island is passing intothe hands of American citizens.”

How did this look from Cuba’s perspective? Well, imagine that at theend of the American Revolution the French had decided to remain here. Imaginethat the French had refused to allow Washington and his army to attend thearmistice at Yorktown. Imagine that they had denied the Continental Congress aseat at the Treaty of Paris, prohibited expropriation of Tory property,occupied New York Harbor, dispatched troops to quash Shays’ and otherrebellions and then immigrated to the colonies in droves, snatching up the mostvaluable land.

Such is the context in which the United States came to occupyGuantánamo. It is a history excluded from American textbooks and neglected inthe debates over terrorism, international law and the reach of executive power.But it is a history known in Cuba (where it motivated the 1959 revolution) andthroughout Latin America. It explains why Guantánamo remains a glaring symbolof hypocrisy around the world. We need not even speak of the last decade.

If President Obama were to acknowledge this history and initiate theprocess of returning Guantánamo to Cuba, he could begin to put the mistakes ofthe last 10 years behind us, not to mention fulfill a campaign pledge. (GivenCongressional intransigence, there might be no better way to close thedetention camp than to turn over the rest of the naval base along with it.) It wouldrectify an age-old grievance and lay the groundwork for new relations with Cubaand other countries in the Western Hemisphere and around the globe. Finally, itwould send an unmistakable message that integrity, self-scrutiny and candor arenot evidence of weakness, but indispensable attributes of leadership in an everchanging world. Surely there would be no fitter way to observe today’s grimanniversary than to stand up for the principles Guantánamo has undermined forover a century.

Jonathan M. Hansen, a lecturer in socialstudies at Harvard, is the author of “Guantánamo: An American History.”

656. In Cuba's Hinterland a Business Is Born

2012-01-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

The Magno Restaurant in Guaimaro

By Marc Frank, Reuters, January 10, 2012

Guaimaro, just one of many small poor and dusty towns along Cuba'ssparsely traveled central highway, is best known as the spot where the island'sfirst constitution was signed during the independence war with Spain.

These days the talk of the town is about a different sort ofindependence in state-dominated Cuba - the privately owned Magno restaurant,the most luxurious place in Guaimaro. Its owner Tomas Mayedo Fernandez is alocal boy who once did jail time for involuntary manslaughter but now, in justover a year as an entrepreneur, is a big success.

The eatery is one of more than 1,000 home-based restaurants, orpaladares, that have opened on the Communist-run island since restrictions onsmall private businesses were loosened in late 2010, as part of a broaderreform of the Soviet-style economy undertaken by President Raul Castro.

A meal at the Magno will cost you the equivalent of a few dollars fora beer and sandwich to $10 or more for steak and lobster, in a land where theaverage wage is less than $20 per month.

There are just two other private eateries and a few shabby lookingstate-run restaurants in Guaimaro, located 400 miles east of Havana. But theycater more to the local population rather than passersby and do not boast air-conditioning,lobster, shrimp, beef, whiskey and aged rum.

"I didn't know anything about running a restaurant, but I likedthe idea of going into business and so when the law changed I began, little bylittle," said Mayedo, a strapping young man and son of a cattle rancher inhis mid-30s.

Mayedo lived in the second story of the once-crumbling, century-oldbuilding. He sold clothing from his living room to make ends meet and lookeddown on the ruins of the empty store front and big back yard the neighbors hadturned into a garbage dump.

SEEING THE POTENTIAL

The place nevertheless had potential because it fronted the centralhighway, giving it access to a larger customer base than just the small town,he decided.

"We were already working to clean the place up before the lawchanged," Mayedo said recently, taking time off from his chats witharriving suppliers and his pacing back and forth with mobile phone in hand.

He began with a small cafeteria, but then on December 10, 2010, heopened the restaurant beside it. His plans did not stop there.

"We also have a jewelry repair shop and in two or three years Iwant to build a place in the back to rent out rooms," he said.

Like the rest of Cuba, many of Guaimaro's residents have family livingabroad, especially in Florida, and as luck would have it, President BarackObama lifted restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting their homeland just a fewmonths before the Magno opened for business.

Over the recent holidays the town - where legs, bicycles andhorse-drawn buggies are the main form of transportation - was dotted withrental cars, many of them driven by visiting Cuban Americans who wanted totreat their relatives and friends to a nice meal while out on the town.

There was only one place to go - the Magno, which has become a sort ofdestination restaurant that is well known in the area.

"December was by far the best month we have had," Mayedosaid.

His wife Yaima Lopez helps run the Magno, while his aunt, a retiredstate economist, takes care of the books. Two cousins, with some cash earnedworking in Angola, where thousands of Cubans work as doctors, constructionworkers and teachers, lent him the seed money.

"I'm paying them back little by little, but they don't pressureme," he said.

The hardest times were when Mayedo waited for his clientele to buildup and worried he might go bankrupt.

"Like all businesses the first year or two are the mostdifficult. And this is the countryside, not the capital where there is moredemand. Here we depend on the people who pass by on the highway," he said.

THE TAX MAN COMETH

As his business has grown, Mayedo has added eight full-time employeesto help operate it.

The biggest challenge has been training a workforce that isdisciplined and pays attention to details, he said.

Mayedo said he has had no serious problems with the government, isgrateful for the reforms underway and believes they are here to stay.

"I thank them for giving us the opportunity to demonstrate toourselves that we are capable of doing this well," he said.

"No state can subsidize an entire population, it is impossible.Furthermore, we provide jobs, pay taxes and help the economy in a bigway."

Mayedo doubted he would become a millionaire any time soon because,despite the reforms, there are still limits.

"The system is designed to allow us to keep living, not becomerich. But yes, my life will keep improving," he said.

In a land where everyone worked for the state and there was no incometax until recently, one is now being levied on hundreds of thousands of small businessesand farms that have appeared due to Raul Castro's reforms.

Mayedo said his aunt was preparing his first income tax return even ashe spoke.

Nowthat was something to worry about at a sliding scale of up to 50 percent of earnings, Mayedoadmitted, but better to pay 50 percent of earnings than no tax on no earningsat all, he said with a shrug.

655. Housing Market Booms in Cuba

2012-01-10T09:20:00.000-08:00

By Marc Frank, Reuters, January 9, 2012

Santiago de Cuba--Hundreds of handwritten signs stuck on doorways and inwindows announce "se vende" or "for sale" in provincialcities and towns across Cuba as the island's nascent housing market begins tobloom.

Buyers walk the streets looking at homes the whereabouts of which werepassed along by word of mouth as sellers outside of Havana have limited accessto the Internet or other means to advertise their sales.

There are hovels and there are splendid little places tucked betweencrumbling buildings. There are two-story homes in need of repair and a few inimmaculate condition. Some places go for the equivalent of a few thousanddollars, others for much more.

Buying and selling homes was banned for decades in Cuba. The best onecould do was trade dwellings in what Cubans call a "permuta" andexpand or decrease the size of where you lived by a single room.

That all changed when the ban was lifted in November, along with muchof the previous paperwork and bureaucratic tangles, though Cubans can still ownjust one home and vacation place and non-resident foreigners are excluded fromthe market.

The measure appears to be the most popular yet as President RaulCastro, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel in 2008, works to reform theSoviet-style economy and gradually lifts some of the more onerous restrictionson people's daily lives.

Trading one's home was a nightmarish process that could take monthsand even years under the old system, and often required bribes and under-the-tablepayments.

The new system requires a simple notary and payment through the bankand appears to be working relatively well according to more than a dozen peopleselling their homes from one end of the island to the other.

"The new law is really good because there are people who getdivorced, or who have money but no place to live, or live in a big place andwant a smaller one, or have big families in a little place and want somethinglarger and now with this law they can meet their needs much more easily,"Tania Vigaroa, in the process of selling her home in eastern Holguin, said.

Most of the sellers say they would like to move to a smaller home andthat permutas plus payments are now to difficult to find because people preferto buy or sell.

In neighboring Santiago de Cuba the other day a haggard lookingreceptionist at the San Pedro notary office, where the waiting room was full,said the three notaries working there had no time to talk.

"This place has been overflowing since they changed the law,every day is the same," said receptionist Milaidy, who asked that her lastname not be used, adding there were three other offices in the city.

Most sellers have become used to strangers on the prowl for a home.They are a hospitable lot, welcoming the passerby to come in for a look.

"I'm asking $55,000. The house has three rooms, two bathrooms, abig back yard, kitchen, dining room and living room and this is right near thecenter of town," said Jose Ramirez in the city of Ciego de Avila, incentral Cuba.

"A number of people have come by so we will see. It's arespectable sum, but my daughter was recently divorced and lives across townand I want to be near her for support. There is a house over there that costsexactly the same amount," he said.

Some 60 miles to the east, in the city of Camaguey, bicycle-taxidriver Roberto Sosa says "no problem," when asked to peddle the Cubanversion of a rickshaw around town for a look at what's on the market.

OVERSEAS INTEREST

An hour and five homes later one place catches the eye on VirginStreet. The neighborhood needs a plaster and paint job and the road needspaving, but the half-block-long, five bedroom single story house, freshlypainted and with new tile floors, is splendid.

"We want $35,000 and have a possible buyer, but she is checkingwith her family in Miami," said the owner's son, who gave his name only asSantiago.

Bicitaxi peddler Sosa wasn't surprised.

"Most of the houses sold are (being bought) with the help offamily abroad, if not it wouldn't be possible because their value is going up alot now," he said, pointing out most local residents make only theequivalent of $20 or $30 per month.

Emilio Morales in Miami wasn't surprised either.

"A number of law firms, mainly here in the United States and Spain,have already called asking about the law for clients who want to know how theycan buy property in Cuba," the former marketing strategist for CIMEX, oneof the largest state-run trading and retail corporations on the island, said ina telephone interview.

Morales, now CEO of The Havana Consulting Group, a startup companyspecializing in potential Cuban markets, including residential real estate,said there was plenty of interest.

"Here in Miami there are a lot of people interested in buyingproperty in Cuba for diverse reasons, some to start restaurants, cafeterias orother businesses and others to have a place to retire and live out their oldage," he said.

654."Incredible Edible Park" in Irvine Feeds 200,000 People

2012-01-09T19:42:00.000-08:00

By Beth Buczynski, Care2, January 8, 2012

Millions of people go to bed hungry inthe United States every day. Even though America is one of the richestcountries in the world, a large percentage of its citizens don’t have the meansto secure high quality, healthy foods for their families.

Meanwhile,thousands of miles of land sit vacant or unused. Some of these vacantparcels have market potential, writes Michael A.Pagano, but many won’t rebound soon, if ever. What if instead of allowingthese lots to collect weeds and litter, cities helped residents to transformthem using edible landscaping?

The City of Irvinedecided to try just such an experiment. In 2008, the city was looking for a wayto develop a 7-acre vacant lot that cost taxpayers over $4,000 a year tomaintain (i.e. control the weeds). By collaborating with SouthernCalifornia Edison and the Second Harvest Food Bank, among others, the Citycreated the Incredible Edible park. Just over three years later, produceharvested from the park helps the food bank feed 200,000 hungry people every month. The site now also includes a biketrail that connects to the Irvine trail system and the City has plans to addadditional acres in the future.

Watch the videobelow to take a tour of the park with John from Growing YourGreens, and ask yourselfwhy there isn’t a park like this in every city.

From Small Seeds, Urban Farms Grow

Victory For San Francisco’s Free Farm Stand

653. Why Latin America Calls on Philosophers

2012-01-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

By Santiago Zabala, Aljazeera, January 9, 2012

Barcelona, Spain - I just returned from the sixth International Forum of Philosophy in Maracaibo, Venezuela, where philosophers from four continents wereinvited to discuss "State, Revolution and the Construction ofHegemony". The event was inaugurated by the vice-presidents of Venezuelaand Bolivia, televised by several channels, and on the last day, a prize of$150,000 was awarded to the best book presented within the Libertador Award for Critical Thinking of 2011.

Similar to the World Social Forum of Brazil, both the prize and forumaim to reflect not only upon the social progress that characterises thesenations, but also the progress taking place in rest of the world; this is whyonly thinkers whose position is essentially leftist are invited, that is, thosein the service of the weak, marginalised, and oppressed sectors of society.

Regardless of how effective the conference's statement is on thegovernors that read it, what is interesting for us - European academics - isthe institutional significance that is given to philosophy in the region. Isthere a philosophy conference or forum in the United States or EU wherevice-presidents take time to inaugurate a similar event?

The attendees might have all been progressive socialists (or evenMarxists in some cases) and therefore have found from the start a certainsympathy from these democratically elected politicians (in Latin America, only Honduras does not have ademocratically elected government), but our Western neoliberal governors do notpromote similar conferences for their preferred intellectuals. We can onlydream that the vice-presidents of Italy or Canada would finance a similarconference for 50 philosophers to reflect upon their policies. Perhaps the daywill come, but in the meantime, we must ask ourselves what this Latin Americanforum tells us about the relation between philosophy and government.

Before exploring this relation, it is necessary to remember that mostLatin American countries today are governed by socialist governments whose mainobjective is to elevate from poverty those citizens that were discarded by theneoliberal (and in some cases dictatorial) states that ruled the region in thepast. This is why for more than a decade now, such renowned progressiveintellectuals as Noam Chomsky, andmany others have been endorsing Chavez, Morales, and other democraticallyelected presidents for their social programmes and economic independence fromthe IMF.

But despite the social progress (since 2003, extreme poverty has beenreduced by 72 per cent in Venezuela), ecological initiatives (Morales has beendeclared the "World Hero of Mother Earth" by the president of theUnited Nations General Assembly), and economic efficiency (unlike the EU, Latin American economies will grow by 4.7 per cent in 2012) of these governments, a campaign of hatred anddisinformation has been taking place throughout our Western media in order todiscredit these achievements.

Perhaps, as Oliver Stone pointed out in his brilliant documentary South of the Border,this campaign is a symptom of fear that citizens in the West might also beginto demand similar policies. After all, while in Europe we are cutting social servicesfollowing the European Central Bank demands, Latin American states are increasing them, just as so many western protesters("indignados", Occupy Wall Street, and other courageous movements)demand.

These Latin American countries are not calling philosophers to obtainfrom them rational justifications or hoping that some of us write propagandaarticles for their policies. Rather, they are showing their awareness thathistory has not ended. I'm referring here to Francis Fukuyama's famous theoryof "the end of history" ("liberal democracy is the onlylegitimate form of government broadly accepted"), which has now been assimilated,if not completely incorporated, by our capitalist culture.

But history in Latin America has neither ended nor started anew. It'ssimply proceeding as an alternate to our capitalist logic of economicenrichment, technological progress and cultural superiority. The Latin Americancountries do not aim to dominate others, but simply to evoke those whom WalterBenjamin called the "losers of history", that is, the ones who havenot succeeded within our neoliberal democratic system. These unsuccessful"shareholders" are represented not only by underprivileged citizens,but also by underdeveloped nations and continents. In this condition,philosophy is called upon to think historically - that is, to maintain livinghistory. But how?

As an interpretative discipline determined to question the (cultural,scientific or political) foundations of thought, philosophy is obligated toremain unsatisfied, that is, to always search for alternative models,possibilities and histories. These alternatives are what keep history alive,that is, maintain the possibilities of greater freedom, wider democracy andalternative systems. In order to achieve this, the organisers of the forumdecided to follow the hermeneutic principle of dialogue, that is, theconversation where truth becomes a constant exchange of different views: In asincere dialogue, none of the interlocutors know beforehand the definitivetruth or where the discussion will lead; instead, they are led by theconversation.

Thus, the 50 participants of the forum were divided into separategroups, and the different themes of the conference were discussed openly fromeach philosophical position. A statement resulted from each group, and theseare now been delivered to the governors of Venezuela in order to encourage themto continue and improve the social progress they've already achieved. I'm surenot all our propositions and analysis will be welcome or applied, but the factthat national political leaders requested such gatherings for over a decade nowindicates the significance they attribute to philosophy for the well-being ofthe state.

Despite the fact we were all invited to this forum because of oursympathies for contemporary Latin American policies, the organisers knew verywell that our different philosophical positions would enrich rather than damagethe discussion. In sum, Latin America calls philosophers, as the late RichardRorty used to say, "to continue the conversation" because itspoliticians are honest enough to recognise that history has not ended with theirsocialist democratic form of government.

SantiagoZabala is ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona. His booksinclude The Hermeneutic Nature of Analytic Philosophy (2008), TheRemains of Being (2009), and most recently, Hermeneutic Communism (2011,co-authored with Gianni Vattimo), all published by Columbia University Press.His webpage is www.santiagozabala.com.

652. Cuba: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Literacy Campaign

2012-01-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

By Yenia Silva Correa, Granma International, January 5, 2012

As the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003 - 2012) is about to come to an end,the number of people in the world who are still illiterate is alarming: 64.7million children have received no formal schooling and 793 million adultsremain illiterate.

Cuba undertook a year-long national literacy campaign which was completed on December 22, 1961 with Cuba being proclaimed a territory free of illiteracy.

The campaign's organizational structures were put in place starting January 1961. In order to teach the country’s 1.045 million illiterates to read and write, volunteer teachers' brigades were organized: the Conrado Benítez, Frank País and Patria o Muerte Brigades, which included schoolteachers and both young and adult volunteers.

Those who were already professional teachers were in charge of training the volunteers – most of them teenagers and more than half of them young women – and of preparing and drafting the instructional booklets to be used.

However, the project to liberate the country of illiteracy was no bed of roses. The Cuban Revolution, still in its infancy in 1961, was confronting counterrevolutionary bands in the Escambray mountains (in the center of the country), had proclaimed the socialist nature of the Revolution and had emerged victorious from the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion; however, nothing stopped the advance of the literacy campaign.

Not even the murder of young volunteer teachers working in rural areas diminished the enthusiasm of those who had assumed with determination one of the noblest efforts within the revolutionary process, and one which was crucial to social justice.

After 12 months, Fidel Castro's commitment to the UN General Assembly in September 1960, "…next year, our people are set to wage a battle against illiteracy!" was fulfilled.

The national illiteracy rate fell to 3.9% for a population of more than 6.9 million inhabitants. This heroic deed would have been impossible without the contribution of Cuban and Latin American students, workers and teachers and the political will of the Cuban leadership.

Many of the literacy teachers later became the professional teachers of many generations of Cubans, and repeated that experience on internationalist missions as teachers in educational brigades in other countries

Others went into different professions, but never forgot the days when they left the cities with their primers and manuals in hand to teach others to read and write.

That period initiated a progressive increase in national educational levels which characterized the following decades of the Revolution. Schools, teachers and scholarships at all levels mushroomed throughout the country and Cuban teachers could be found throughout Africa and Latin America.

A RIGHT FOR ALL

While a lack of state policies means that literacy efforts are not a priority in many parts of the world, UNESCO acknowledges that this is a human right which paves the way for formal education.

For Cuba, the literacy campaign experience did not end in December of 1961, on the contrary. At the beginning of this century action was needed in relation to adult education in other countries and thus the Yo si puedo (Yes, I Can) program came into being.

Following the basic principles of the Literacy Campaign, the Yo si puedo project has been implemented in more than 30 countries, and in the case of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, was the tool utilized to eradicate illiteracy.

In 2006, the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize was awarded to the Cuban Youth and Adult Literacy program. However, no recognition can be greater than having taught 3.5 million people to read and write; many of them are already receiving the follow-up Yo si puedo seguir (I Can Do More) program, which totally completes their elementary education.

651. Cuba: 4.9% Infant Mortality Rate in 2011

2012-01-08T09:56:00.001-08:00

Cuba's 2011 infant mortality rate is lowest in Americas

By Josè De La Osa, Granma International, January 5, 2012

For the last four years Cuba has achieved an infant mortality rate ofbelow 5.0 per 1,000 live births, the lowest in the Americas together withCanada – sustained by the revolutionary government’s health policies whichguarantee equality of access to medical services for mothers and children.

Social justice is unmistakably revealed on observing the status ofthis indicator in the country’s 15 provinces and the special municipality ofthe Isle of Youth. None of those recording a result higher than the nationalaverage of 4.9 are not in excess of 7.9.

The United States, which has maintained its criminal economic blockadeof the country for more than 50 years, records an infant mortality rate of 7.0although, taking into account the humiliating inequalities between rich andpoor, rates in areas inhabited by the most dispossessed are, on average, 2.5times higher. Approximately seven million U.S. children lack any healthcoverage.

As is known, the infant mortality rate, which measures the risk ofdeath during the first year of life – the most critical for human beings’survival – is an expression of the quality with which a country treats andprotects mothers and children, their health, their material security, educationand socialization. Thus it is an international demographic indicator whichdemonstrates these advances in a synthetic way.

According to preliminary data given to Granma January 1 by theMinistry of Public Health Statistics Office, in 2011 there were 133,063 births,5,317 more than in 2010.

Seven provinces achieved rates of below 4.0. These are Las Tunas(3.5), Artemisa (3.9), Pinar del Río (4.0), Holguín (4.0), Havana (4.3), Ciegode Ávila (4.4) and Granma (4.4). Of the country’s 168 municipalities, 17 havezero infant mortality.

When experts are consulted every year as to how Cuba makes thesefavorable infant mortality rates possible, responses are usually in a similarvein: political will and determination, a highly educated population, anall-encompassing vaccination program with a virtually 100% coverage ofchildren, and a universal health system, accessible and free of charge, whichis currently restoring the initial concept of the Family Doctor and NurseProgram in order to attain a more efficient and sustainable health system.

All that is complemented by highly qualified health workers, withtheir proverbial human dedication and solidarity.

The multifaceted care given to pregnant women in Cuba is known. Forthe significance that means for the security and happiness of Cuban families,it is worth recalling national genetic services in the area of public health.

A genetic risk study is made in the early stages of pregnancy;followed by a hemoglobin electrophoresis to identify carriers of sickle cellanemia and, if the mother is a carrier, the father is given the test and ifthey both are, the baby is checked at birth to diagnose whether s/he ishealthy, a carrier or sick.

Genetic ultrasounds are made in the first and second trimesters ofpregnancy, plus an alpha-fetoprotein study to identify possible central nervoussystem defects. In the case of pregnant woman aged over 37, at greatest risk ofhaving a Downs Syndrome baby, they are given the option of prenatal screening.

Specialists with the Maternal-Infant Attention Program affirm thateven greater security for women and their offspring can be achieved, and havecalled on women of reproductive age to establish adequate family planning whichincludes previous investigations, in order to ensure their good health duringpregnancy and to minimize risks.

Family doctors provide these services and a follow up on disordersrelated to pre-conception risks. Within the program, women are asked to consulta doctor at least six months before planning a wanted pregnancy. Risks of thisnature are basically related to malnutrition, anemia, hypertension, diabetesmellitus, hypothyroidism, and infections of the uterus, urinary tract andrespiratory system (asthma).

A continued reduction in the infant mortality rate as an expression ofhuman development requires both the efforts of the national public healthsystem and greater individual and social commitment to adopting measuresleading to responsible pregnancies.

17 MUNCIPALITIES WITH ZERO INFANT MORTALITY, 2011

PROVINCES MUNICIPALITIES PROVINCES MUNICIPALITIES

Pinar del RíoViñales Cienfuegos Palmira

Artemisa MarielRodas

Guanajay Ciego ÁvilaBolivia

Mayabeque Melenadel Sur Majagua

Matanzas PericoCamagüey Najasa

Pedro BetancourtHolguín Cueto

Los Arabos GranmaBuey Arriba

Villa ClaraQuemados Guantánamo Caimanera

Cifuentes

Source: MINSAPNational Statistics Office. 