Sunday Roundup - March 30, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the happiest cities, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Iran nuclear talks, the US surveillance reforms, and Venezuela.

The Happiest Cities

Provo looking towards the mountains-from utahvalley.com website

Not sure what it is about the Spring but, in the past week, I've read two lists of "happiest cities" - one for the US and one for Italy.  Maybe it was occasioned by the UN declaration of March 20 as the International Day of Happiness.  Gallup teamed with Healthways to rank the US cities based on a "well-being index" that  looked at sense of purpose, social, financial, community, and physical well-being factors. [Gallup Poll website]   The top five US metropolitan areas using the well-being index are: Provo-Orem, Utah; Boulder, Colorado; Fort Collins-Loveland, Colorado; Honolulu, Hawaii, and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California.  The Italians, on the other hand, analyzed 40 million tweets, characterizing them as happy (or not) using the iHappy Index..  Corriere Della Sera reports: Analysis of more than 40 million tweets collected daily from Italy’s 110 provinces reveals that in 2013, Italy’s happiness capital was Genoa. The Ligurian capital’s province topped the rankings with 75.5% of its tweets classified as happy. Hard on Genoa’s heels was Cagliari with 75.1% while other top ten towns included Parma (fourth with 72.9%), Bari (seventh on 71.7%) and Bologna (71.4%), which came second in 2012 but last year slid down to ninth place.  It appears that, more than anything else, weather affects the people's happiness in Italy.  Monday is the saddest day of the week and Christmas is the happiest holiday, followed closely by Mother's Day.  Living further south in Italy or in a coastal city also increases people's happiness.

Genoa Bay - from miriadna.com website

  
Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
John Kerry met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, Jordan, in an attempt to rescue the faltering peace process.  As reported in the The Guardian on March 26: Kerry arrived in the Jordanian capital hours after an Arab League summit in Kuwait released a statement emphatically declaring that Arab leaders would never recognise Israel as a "Jewish state", a key demand Netanyahu has made of Palestinians.  Increasingly harsh rhetoric is coming from both sides centered around Israeli settlement building on Palestinian land and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.  After months of deadlock Kerry has given up hopes of brokering a deal and is instead concentrating his efforts on convincing the sides to agree to extend talks.  Otherwise, the negotiations are planned to end in April.

Iran Nuclear Talks
Writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Arms Control Today, George Perkovich recommends the Obama Administration and Congress divert a fraction of the time and energy now spent debating whether to add sanctions on Iran to the more difficult challenge of figuring out how to cooperate in removing them if a final agreement is reached.  Perkovich notes that the US and its negotiating partners seem to have reached a general understanding regarding key components that should be included in a satisfactory deal.  Iran must significantly constrain its activities related to uranium enrichment, revise plans to build a heavy-water reactor, resolve outstanding questions with the IAEA about Tehran’s past activities, and implement additional protocols to strengthen the IAEA’s ability to carry out inspections in the country and...[to] require Iran to provide design information as soon as decisions are made to construct a nuclear facility. To these Perkovich adds four less talked about components that would result in a well-rounded nuclear deal: constraints on enrichment activities, irreversible safeguards, circumscribed R&D, and new transparency and verification measures.  These measures would help build confidence “that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek or develop any nuclear weapons” and thus open the way to the final removal of sanctions.

Surveillance Reforms
President Obama confirmed on Tuesday March 25 that US plans to end the NSA's bulk collection of telephone records.  The House Intelligence Committee is close to an agreement with the White House to revamp the surveillance program.  The bipartisan USA Freedom Act, under consideration in both the House and Senate, would, in addition to ending bulk record collection, put limits on Patriot Act practices targeting people in the US, require the government obtain a court order before using information about Americans collected during foreign intelligence operations, and create a public advocate to advise the secret surveillance court. [ACLU webpage]   

The Guardian was instrumental in bringing NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden's revelations to the world's attention. A Guardian March 25 article gave Snowden's and Obama's comments on the surveillance reforms:  In a statement through the American Civil Liberties Union, Snowden said the plans outlined by Obama were a “turning point”...Snowden said none of these reforms would have happened without the disclosures he precipitated. “I believed that if the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans was known, it would not survive the scrutiny of the courts, the Congress, and the people.” ...Obama said he believed that reform proposals presented to him by the US intelligence agencies were “workable”, and would “eliminate” the concerns of privacy campaigners. “I am confident that it allows us to do what is necessary in order to deal with the threat of a terrorist attack, but does so in a way that addresses people's concerns."
[The Guardian, March 25]


Venezuela

"Chavismo" pro-government rally in Caracas (Feb 2014) (axisoflogic.com)

Democracy is under attack in Venezuela as opposition leaders attempt to thwart the will of the Venezuelan people.  Misinformation in the Western press and on social media have added to the problems facing the Maduro government.  On March 14, Al Jazeera published an open letter from 46 experts on Latin America calling on US Secretary of State John Kerry to "stand by democratic institutions and the rule of law" and to respect the legitimacy of the Maduro government in Venezuela.  The authors note that Maduro won the Presidential election in 2013 by a greater margin than did Kennedy in 1960, Nixon in 1968 and Bush in 2000.  They continue: Just two months ago, Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and allied parties won a majority of municipal elections nationwide by a 10-point margin over the opposition. Those elections were widely seen by the Venezuelan opposition, the Venezuelan private media and the international media as a plebiscite on Maduro’s government, and the pro-government parties clearly won...It appears that a sector of the political opposition is determined to use those who want to protest peacefully as part of an effort to...overturn the results of democratic elections.  The authors note the histories of the two most prominent opposition leaders in trying to remove elected officials from office - in particular the role played by Leopoldo Lopez in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez.  We are troubled to note that so far the U.S. government has taken the most aggressive and partisan stance of any country in the hemisphere regarding the recent violence....the U.S. State Department has made statements that will only encourage the most radical, violent sectors of the opposition to continue on their current path.

Links
Lists of Most and Least Happy US Cities [Business Insider, March 25] 

The Top 10 Places in the World for Beautiful Weather [care2.com based on March/April 2014 Weatherwise Magazine article]

Viña del Mar, Chile - #1 for best weather (care2.com)

Obstructing the Judiciary

Justice too long delayed is justice denied.

- Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

The President of the United States is responsible for nominating judges to the Federal judiciary.  It is the Senate's responsibility to confirm or deny these nominations.  With just 7 months remaining before the 2014 midterm elections, there are 86 vacancies in the Federal courts - roughly 10% of the total Federal judgeships.  Nearly all vacancies have resulted from Republicans blocking Obama nominees in an attempt  to deny the Democratic President his choices and ensure continued Republican control of the judicial branch.  The obstructionism on presidential nominees to Federal judgeships is unprecedented in recent history.


Harry Reid was able to change the Senate rules to prevent filibustering of these nominees to the federal courts.  Should the Republicans gain control of the Senate in 2014, this will no longer matter.  You can rest assured that any Obama nominee sent to a Republican Senate will not be confirmed.  Just look at the decisions of the currently composed Supreme Court to see what the future holds.  Democracy-challenged supporters of the corporations and the wealthy, appointed by Republican Presidents, fill most of the seats on the Court and they've brought us such decisions as Citizens United and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.  Who can ever forget the Republican majority Supreme Court stopping the vote recount in Florida and handing Bush the Presidency even though Gore had garnered more than a half-million more popular votes nationally?


The Court's favorable ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act was still detrimental to the "non-ruling" class.  By making the expansion of Medicaid optional, they effectively eliminated this option for low-wage-earners in most Republican-controlled states.  There has been some movement but as of now, there are still 25 states not moving forward with the ACA's provision for Medicaid expansion.  In the end, those finally denied affordable medical insurance will be in the millions.




The Roberts' corporate court sided with the Chamber of Commerce in 13 of 16 cases during the 2009-2010 term.  Then, in the 2010-2011 term, "the Roberts Court cut down an exemplary Arizona statute that leveled the financial playing field, rejected a [gender discrimination] suit by 1.6 million women against...Wal-Mart, shielded the makers of drugs from lawsuits by patients who had been harmed, smothered lawsuits against mutual fund cheaters and liars, and disallowed a suit by a death row inmate even though the prosecution failed to turn over exculpating evidence." [Reno News & Review, "Top 10 Worst Supreme Court Decisions", March 2012]



Currently there are 49 nominees pending for the 86 vacant judgeships.  Mr. President, please wake up and bring forward nominations for the remaining 37 vacancies before the mid-terms. Senator Reid, please put these nominations on a fast track.

2014 Senate seat contests -lighter color indicates retiring Senator

Why is this important?  Democrats currently hold a 55-45 edge in the Senate (assuming the two independents continue to vote with the Dems).  If just 6 seats change hands, the Republicans will control the Senate.  I don't want to sound too pessimistic about the Democrats' chances of holding onto the Senate but there are 21 Democratic seats at stake in 2014 compared to just 15 Republican seats.  Four of the 21 Democratic seats are held by retiring Senators - South Dakota, Iowa, Michigan and West Virginia.  Of the 17 remaining Democratic incumbents, 5 are from states that went for Romney in 2012.  So that leaves just 12 seats with a returning Democrat running for office in a "blue state".  By my count, that means 9 Democratic Senate seats are up for grabs.


This year's elections promise to the most expensive mid-terms ever.  The money unleashed by Citizens United is flowing freely into the electoral process.  Fact-free negative ads are bouncing around the airwaves.  Voter suppression measures will be taking full effect in November and "government of the people, by the people and for the people" may become a thing of the past.  With the addition of corporate judges to the Federal courts should the Republicans gain the Senate, the oligarchy will be entrenched for a long, long time.


Image
The 2014 Senate election map is from Wikipedia.
The Medicaid expansion map is from the Kaiser Family Foundation website.

Links
"If you prick a corporation, does it not bleed?..." cartoon [New Yorker, March 14, 2011]

Options for low-income people in states denying Medicaid expansion [AllVoices.com, March 22]

Sunday Roundup - March 23, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at Ukraine and Crimea, the new Cosmos series, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the  collapse of industrial civilization.

Ukraine
The US and Russia traded sanctions on Thursday and the EU is mulling additional sanctions against Russia. The new sanctions have been prompted by the Crimean vote to leave Ukraine and Russia's subsequent annexation of it.   Le Monde Diplomatique gives some background on the protests that led to the ouster of the Moscow-leaning President Viktor Yanukovych and discusses the aftermath.  "Who were the protesters and what were their goals?...The protest movement emerged in November last year, after Yanukovych suspended negotiations on a free trade agreement with the European Union."  The pro-Western protesters were soon joined by "several nationalist groups... and... ultra-radical, non-democratic movements without European sympathies...Dormant during the Soviet era, the nationalist movement reappeared after independence in 1991, when the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU) was formed. Until the early 2000s, the SNPU was a marginal, xenophobic and ultra-nationalist organization."  Then the SNPU changed significantly. "It shed its fascist trappings ...in 2004, renaming itself Svoboda (freedom) and abandoning its neo-Nazi badge, the Wolfsangel (wolf hook), in favour of a more neutral symbol."  Svoboda's nationalist and anti-system stance won it 10% of the vote in 2012.  Svoboda wants to end Russian influence in the Ukraine.  Its strong nationalist stance translates into a foreign policy that wishes "to see Ukraine join NATO, rearm with nuclear weapons and leave all post-Soviet cooperative organisations."  Another opposition group gaining in popularity after the street clashes is Pravy Sektor, which supports "none of the opposition parties, especially not Svoboda, disappointed by its 'appeals for calm and negotiation with the authorities.' ... Svoboda’s success over the past few years and the presence of neo-fascist groups such as Pravy Sektor in Independence Square are signs of a crisis in Ukrainian society...Though Independence Square will go down in history as an extraordinary example of collective and popular action, the political outcome is as yet unclear. Ukraine is in need of a new force that truly serves the people and transcends its many social and political divides."

Map of Ukraine with Crimean Peninsula highlighted (adapted from ESL-in-Canada's website)

Crimea
Crimea has a Russian-ethnic population and they voted overwhelmingly to join Russia in a referendum last Sunday.  Western nations have declared the referendum and annexation illegal.  Juan Cole at Informed Comment agrees but notes that "Crimea had been Russian territory since the late 18th century and was only attached to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1950s, at a time when Russia and Ukraine were part of the same country. Whatever the status of Sunday’s referendum, it seems likely that if Crimeans could vote fairly and freely, a majority would probably accede to Russia."  Cole notes that "Russia’s annexation of Crimea is among the few significant territorial acquisitions since the end of World War II by one country from another, more or less by force. The only clear parallel... is the Israeli annexation of the Palestinian territories in 1967."  Cole concludes that Israel's steps in occupying the Palestinian territories "are more egregious than Russia’s incorporation of Crimea. No local populations in any of those areas would vote to accede to Israel....Unlike with Mr. Putin, the US has not imposed sanctions on Israel for its territorial aggrandizement, and instead has de facto supported it."

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
If you enjoy good science, you need to watch the new Cosmos series on Fox and National Geographic TV. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is an updated re-imagining of Carl Sagan's 1980 series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.  Hard to believe that the original Cosmos aired more than 30 years ago.  Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts the new series, which began Sunday, March 9. "According to National Geographic, it was the largest global rollout of a TV series ever, appearing on 220 channels in 181 countries and 45 languages."  Mother Jones discusses Tyson's Inquiring Minds podcast and notes the contrast between him and Carl Sagan in debating the anti-science (or bad science) forces.  "Carl Sagan himself often took strong stands on science-based political issues of the day. He clashed with the Reagan administration over arms control and the 'Star Wars' program, and the debate over his ideas about 'nuclear winter' served as a kind of preview of the current battle over global warming. 'Carl Sagan would debate people on all manner of issues,' said Tyson.'And I don't have the time or the energy or the interest in doing so. As an educator, I'd rather just get people thinking straight in the first place, so I don't have to then debate them later on.'...In other words, Tyson's view appears to be that in an age rife with science denial, Cosmos rises above that fray by instilling in us wonder about the nature of the cosmos and our quest to understand it. And given the breathtaking quality and stunningly wide distribution of the show, there's much to say for that approach. " 

Image is from NatGeoTV.com

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks
"Right wing Israeli officials ....expressed rage [last weekend] at US Secretary of State John Kerry for saying that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should “drop” his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state."  Both the Arab League and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have "rejected Netanyahu’s diction. It is a red line for them. Insisting on it will mean no agreement."  To agree to Netanyahu's statement would jeopardize the Palestinian right of return.  In a March 12 speech, Abbas explained that "his commitment to the negotiations was time-bound, for a nine-month period, while Kerry tried to hammer out an agreement, especially on security and borders."  Abbas laid out the Palestinian position in the negotiations - East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, complete Israeli withdrawal from "the West Bank or from territories equivalent to the extent of the West Bank as it existed in 1967", and compensation and a right of return for Palestinians displaced in 1948 and 1967.  "This speech may help explain why President Obama told PM Netanyahu that the US can’t protect Israel if there is no agreement. Mahmoud Abbas has not put going to the International Criminal Court off the agenda, he just postponed it for nine months. The nine months is expiring. If the Kerry negotiations crash and burn, pressure will build on Abbas and other Palestine officials to go to the ICC." [Informed Comment, March 16]

Industrial Civilization's Collapse?
The Guardian's Earth Insight blog on March 14 had this ominous lead: "A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution."  Examining the collapse of civilizations through history, the project identified "the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy." These factors can result in civilizational collapse when they result in the aforementioned resource exploitation and wealth maldistribution.  "Modelling a range of different scenarios, [lead researcher Safa] Motesharri and his colleagues conclude that under conditions 'closely reflecting the reality of the world today... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.'... However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation."  They write: "Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."




Links
You can watch full episodes of Cosmos here.

Let's Repeal the Second Amendment

One of the many pieces of legislation bottled up by the do-nothing-Republican-controlled-and-Republican-filibustered Congress is gun control regulation.  Even after Sandy Hook, Republicans managed to prevent meaningful Federal gun legislation from being enacted - not even the requirement for universal background checks or a ban on assault rifles.  Recourse to the courts for a common sense interpretation of the Second Amendment for the common good is useless.  The Republican majority on the Supreme Court refuses to recognize "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State" as the clearly dependent introductory clause that it is.

While some states have advanced tougher gun laws, others are moving into the deep end of the bizarre.  Georgia's State House of Representatives has drafted what's been called the "most extreme gun bill in America" by Americans for Responsible Solutions.  "Georgia lawmakers could soon make broad changes to the state’s gun laws to allow firearms in bars, churches, airports, and certain government buildings." [MSNBC/March 14]  What in hell could these fools be thinking?  In Georgia, no permit is needed to purchase a handgun and the state has the 9th highest firearm homicide rate in the country. 

NRA money continues to flow into Colorado to upend the stronger gun laws passed there last year.  The NRA has been able to defeat two state senators instrumental to the passage of the gun legislation in recall elections.  But so far they have had little success in overturning the laws as Democrats are holding on to a majority in the state legislature.  Seven of the eight bills introduced by the pro-gun industry  have been defeated - Concealed Handgun Carry without a Permit, Ammunition Magazine Prohibition. Concealed-Carry in Public Schools, Governor Cannot Restrict Firearms During Emergencies, No Background Check for Step-Relations, Concerning Background Checks and Fees for Gun Transfers, Repeal Large-Capacity Ammunition Magazine Ban.  One (Repeal Regulations on Firearms Purchases in Contiguous States) passed the State Senate and is pending in the House. This last bill, according to John Morse of Americans for Principled Leadership. "actually addresses an outmoded 1969 state statute that has subsequently been eclipsed by the Brady Bill and other federal legislation passed more recently....No harm is being done with this clean up measure."

According Slate.com's gun death tally, more than 12,000 people were killed by guns in the US between the time of the Sandy Hook shooting and Dec. 31, 2013.  Add to this the 20,000 suicides per year and the need for common sense regulation of guns becomes clear.  Mental illness, socio-economic factors, gang violence, guns in the hands of felons - these all contribute to the totals. But taking guns out of the hands of those prone to use them against others or themselves and taking assault rifles out of everybody's hands would make the totals significantly lower.

Every study and every statistic point to the connection between the availability of guns and gun-related deaths.  The gun homicide rate in the US with its relatively lax gun laws is vastly higher than that in other developed countries - 10 times that of Italy and 90 times that of the United Kingdom, for example.  [Wikipedia]  The largest study of gun violence in the United States, released in September 2013, "confirms a point that should be obvious: widespread American gun ownership is fueling America’s gun violence epidemic...[The authors found] “for each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership,...firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9 percent." [Think Progress website]  A Harvard study found that states with the strongest/most gun laws had a firearms death rate 42% lower than the states with fewest controls on guns.  The authors take pains to note that "You can’t necessarily say one absolutely led to the other … but you can say those things are related.”   I found one of the reasons for their hesitation absolutely incredible.  “One of the major challenges that has existed over the past 15 years is that basically all avenues of federal funding – either the CDC or the NIH – have been cut off from studying firearm fatalities,” [the author Dr. Eric] Fleegler said. ”I’m a pediatric emergency medicine doctor. If there are ten children who die from a toy or some sort of injury, there is an incredible human cry that we make sure that we stop those types of deaths. Here on the other side you have 31,000 people who die every single year from firearms. That is a number of deaths on virtually an unprecedented level, and nothing is being done to understand this or reduce it.” [Here & Now webpage, Boston Public Radio website]

I cannot get the objection of those who oppose universal background checks.  If you personally have nothing to hide, why are you reluctant?  I cannot get the point of those who would make possession of high capacity magazines and assault rifles the right of every mentally unstable American.  Under what circumstances other than mass murder or civil insurrection would you ever need these?  Please don't say hunting.  And I really can't get why Federal funding has been cutoff from studies of gun violence. What are they afraid we'll find out?

Maybe it's time to repeal the outmoded second amendment or at least interpret it in a manner consistent with the amendment authors' intent.  It was written at a time when muskets had to be powdered and reloaded after every shot, when America was a rural nation, when some were worried that the country would be reclaimed by Great Britain and, probably most importantly, when the militia were the only means of defense.  As Dan Heaton writes at Yahoo Voices: "After the Revolutionary War, the standing army of the new country essentially ceased to exist and the various state militias were again the primary means of national defense." .In other words, the militia granted the right to bear arms was the equivalent to today's armed forces.  No other Western democracy has anything like this enduring anachronism from the eighteenth century and they are surviving just fine, thank you.

In Brief - Updates on Issues We've Been Following
U.S. Accidental Shootings mid-February to early March

Oregon and Montana became the fourth and fifth states to restore Congressional food stamp cuts. They joined New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.  Of the 14 states and the District of Columbia affected by the cuts, at least seven states (Connecticut, Montana, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont) plus D.C. are moving or have already moved to block them, according to a Stateline survey. The remaining "heat and eat" states  — California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin — are considering doing the same.

Senate negotiators struck a bipartisan deal on March 13 that would renew federal unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.  The bill could come up for a vote in the Senate by the end of March but its fate in the Republican-controlled House is up in the air.

President Obama rolled out his plan to "force American businesses to pay more overtime to millions of workers, the latest move by his administration to confront corporations that have had soaring profits even as wages have stagnated."

The people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia on Sunday.  On Monday the US and EU announced announced personal sanctions against Russian and Crimean officials.

Louisiana's lawsuit against MoveOn's billboards advocating Medicaid expansion

Sunday Roundup - March 16, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at Pope Francis, Ukraine, six ways America lags the rest of the developed world, Syria, Venzuelan food shortages, and the new Jimi Hendrix stamp. 


Quote of the Day

"I wonder...how...foreign policies...would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never...wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children."

- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the Untied States

Pope Francis' First Anniversary
"A group of young people from around the world have launched a campaign called Grazie Francesco – Thank You Francis – to send the Pope messages marking the first year of his pontificate March 13...Thousands of messages from around the world in eight different languages can be read on the campaign's website, which was created by the Argentinian group Lindo Lio...Lindo Lio said its name comes from the Holy Father's call to young people at World Youth Day Rio 2013 to “stir things up in your dioceses. I want to the Church to go out onto the streets!” [Catholic News Agency, March 11]


Ukraine
The Guardian reported Friday that "11th-hour talks in London between the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, broke up without resolving the standoff."  Russia has refused to postpone the Crimean referendum Sunday.  Should the referendum to rejoin Russia pass (and it looks like it will), Western nations will impose sanctions on Russia starting Monday.  Kerry challenged Lavrov over "sudden Russian troop movements along the Ukrainian border over the past few days....Lavrov, at a press conference at the talks, insisted the referendum would go ahead as planned. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, 'will respect the will of the Crimean people', Lavrov said. Lavrov expressed concern over violence in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine overnight on Thursday. Casualties mounted from clashes between pro- and anti-Russian protesters there" with one reported death and 26 to 28 injured.

"Six Ways America Is Like A Third World Country"
Rolling Stone magazine's March 5 post by Shawn McElwee notes that although "the U.S. is one of the richest societies in history, it still lags behind other developed nations in many important indicators of human development."  McElwee discusses  "six of the most egregious examples that show how far we still have to go" to catch up with the rest of the developed world:
Criminal justice - "The only country that incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than we do is North Korea. The U.S. is also the only developed country that executes prisoners...[and] 42 percent of those on death row are black, compared to less than 15 percent of the overall population."
Gun violence -"The U.S. leads the developed world in firearm-related murders, and the difference isn't a slight gap – more like a chasm. According to United Nations data, the U.S. has 20 times more murders than the developed world average."
Healthcare - "A study last year found that in many American counties, especially in the deep South, life expectancy is lower than in Algeria, Nicaragua or Bangladesh. The U.S. is the only developed country that does not guarantee health care to its citizens"
Education - "America has one of the highest achievement gaps between high income and low income students, as measured by the OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development]....Students in the average OECD country can expect about 70 percent of their college tuition to be publicly funded..."; in the United States, it's about 40 percent,
Income inequality - "By almost every measure, the U.S. tops out OECD countries in terms of income inequality, largely because America has the stingiest welfare state of any developed country....[In] many parts of the United States...children born in the poorest quintile have a less than 3 percent chance of reaching the top quintile"
Infrastructure - "The United States infrastructure is slowly crumbling apart and is in desperate need for repair. One study estimates that our infrastructure system needs a $3.6 trillion investment over the next six years."

Syria

Location Map of Syria is from www.mapsnworld.com

With no end in sight to the violence and no prospects on the horizon for negotiations, the bad news just keeps coming for the Syrian people. Al Jazeera reported on March 10 on a new report by the charity Save the Children.  "Syria's civil conflict has left the country's health system so severely crippled that some patients are 'opting to be knocked out with metal bars for lack of anaesthesia,' a new report by the Save the Children charity says.  The report, A Devastating Toll, looks at the impact of three years of war on the health of the country's children.  'We received a little girl with critical injuries; we could do nothing but wait for her to die because we didn't have the equipment or the medicines. Till now I can't remove her face from my mind,' said one health worker...The charity said more than 10,000 young lives had been lost as a direct result of the violence....'The extent of the decline in Syria’s health system is demonstrated in many horrific ways, including children having limbs amputated because the clinics they present to don't have necessary equipment to treat them,'the report said."

As I see it, the only way out of this devastating civil war is for an arms embargo on all sides in the conflict and an immediate and unconditional cease fire.  Once the fighting is stopped, humanitarian aid can flow freely to the people of Syria.  Then a power-sharing agreement between the government and the rebel forces should be secured.  As one of Syria's allies, Iran must be given a role in bringing the Assad government to the negotiating table. 

In Brief Links
Link to the Grazie Francesco website

Are hoarding and bootlegging causing Venezuela's food shortages?

Jimi Hendrix is now on a US postage stamp

Environmental Developments

The much-publicized but little-watched Senate "all-nighter" to raise awareness on the environment has come and gone.  Let's face it.  No non-local election is going to be decided on a candidate's position on global warming or any other environmental issue.  But elections definitely are decided by money, and, as reported in the New York Times on Monday, "Among the biggest recent changes is the injection of hundreds of millions of dollars to support candidates who make climate change a priority. The California hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer has pledged to spend up to $100 million in this year’s midterm elections to help elect candidates who support strengthened climate policy." 

So in preparation for Earth Day, here are some environmental actions, study results, and recommendations from the last six months or so. 

• In September, the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development issued a report on the link between climate change and food security, "Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before It's Too Late".  "The report links global security and escalating conflicts with the urgent need to transform agriculture toward what it calls “ecological intensification" and concludes that what is needed is "a rapid and significant shift from conventional...industrial production toward ...sustainable, regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale farmers.” [Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy blog, Sep 20]
• Stymied by a Republican-controlled House and -filibustered Senate, President Obama promised, in his State of the Union address, executive actions on the environment and other issues. A week prior to the SOTU, Colorado State's Center for the New Energy Economy listed over 200 executive actions for his consideration.  Among the items suggested by the report are energy-saving performance contracts (ESPCs) for greener federal buildings, new efficiency standards for appliances, tougher greenhouse gas emissions standards for power plants, increased oversight of "fracking", and offering incentives for companies and individuals to bring new energy ideas to the market.  [New Republic, January 21]
• Some executive actions already in place include ordering "the development of tough new fuel standards for the nation’s fleet of heavy-duty trucks,... creation of seven regional 'climate hubs' to help farmers adapt to the impact of climate change, like drought and increased pests,...E.P.A... rules requiring automakers to double average fleet economy standards for passenger cars to 50.4 miles per gallon by 2025,... new rules cutting carbon pollution from future coal-fired power plants, a move that has effectively frozen construction of new coal plants." [New York Times, Feb.18]
• Apple CEO Tim Cook was questioned at a shareholders meeting by a spokesman for the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research on Apple's declared intent to use renewable energy sources for 100 percent of its buildings.  Brian Chaffin writes at The MacObserver website about the exchange: "In an emotional response to the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), Apple CEO Tim Cook soundly rejected the politics of the group and suggested it stop investing in Apple if it doesn't like his approach to sustainability and other issues....What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR's advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.  'When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,' he said, 'I don't consider the bloody ROI.'  He said the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader."

• Mother Jones in a Climate Desk collaboration with The Guardian reported on an Oxford University study "enlisting citizen researchers to help study the role of global warming in the United Kingdom’s record-breaking wet winter."  The study "will determine in the next month or so whether global warming made this winter's extreme deluge more likely to occur, or not....The weather@home project allows you to donate your spare computer time in return for helping turn speculation over the role of climate change in extreme weather into statistical fact."  The so-called "attribution debate" has been reignited by the devastating winter weather and the flooding and storm damage it wrought...The research that links global warming to particular extreme weather events...has already notched up notable successes." The Oxford team has previously proven the case for the 2000 flooding in England, the killer heat waves in Europe in 2003 and 2010, and Hurricane Katrina.

Images
Earth from Space is from NASA.
Car driving through floodwater on the Somerset Levels appeared in The Guardian.  Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Sunday Roundup - March 9, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the Pentagon budget, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Netanyahu's visit with President Obama, the Ukraine, the Central African Republic, and climate change.

The Pentagon Budget 
TomDispatch contributor Mattea Kramer writes about the Pentagon's phony budget war.  Washington is pushing the panic button, claiming austerity is hollowing out our armed forces and our national security is at risk...Yet a careful look at budget figures for the U.S. military -- a bureaucratic juggernaut accounting for 57% of the federal discretionary budget and nearly 40% of all military spending on this planet -- shows that such claims have been largely fictional. Despite cries of doom since the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration surfaced in Washington in 2011, the Pentagon has seen few actual reductions, and there is no indication that will change any time soon.  Kramer analyzes the positioning of the military-industrial-political-complex in an excellent March 6 post at TomDispatch.  "Ike" must be turning over in his grave.

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks
The original time frame for the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is rapidly approaching with no visible progress to report.  Former Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Ishtayeh doesn't believe there is much hope for an extension of the April 29 deadline for a framework deal.  “What we have seen in the talks is that the gap is growing, rather than narrowing,” said Mr. Ishtayeh, who resigned as a negotiator in November to protest accelerated Israeli settlement building.  For the Palestinians, the biggest obstacle is a new demand ... that they accept Israel as a Jewish state, he said. The Palestine Liberation Organization recognized the state of Israel when peace efforts began two decades ago and Mr. Abbas has argued this is sufficient.  Mr. Abbas cannot “under any circumstances” recognize Israel as a Jewish state because this would restrict the return options of Palestinian refugees...Israel’s land demands pose another serious obstacle.... Israel wants to annex these “settlement blocs,” but never has presented a detailed border proposal. The Palestinians say these blocs add up to about 12% of the West Bank. Israel also wants a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley, which makes up 28% of the West Bank. [National Post/Associated Press, March 6]

Obama's Message to Netanyahu
Meanwhile Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington speaking with President Obama.  Juan Cole's March 5 Informed Comment opinion piece called Netanyahu’s visit even more of a disaster for him than might have been expected...It did not help that the Crimea crisis had broken out.... Most observers in Europe and even some in the US could see the hypocrisy of the US denouncing Russian troops in Crimea but supporting Israeli troops in Hebron.  Prior to his meeting with Netanyahu, Obama had been interviewed by Jeffrey Goldberg for Bloomberg.  Obama had a strong message for the Israeli Prime Minister on the peace process (see below).  Juan Cole called Obama's words more candid than those of any sitting president since the 1970s.  Cole's take on the President's statement is that Obama is trying to tell Netanyahu that we can see him...that the world is deciding that the Israelis intend to keep the Palestinians stateless and to constrain their lives with checkpoints and arbitrary arrest and property theft virtually forever...What Obama was...saying was that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to respond to Israeli colonialism against the Palestinians is unfolding in other venues where the US government doesn’t have a veto. The US cannot force the European Union states to disregard EU law. It cannot forestall lawsuits by Palestinian concerns in Europe against European companies involved in helping occupy them. Moreover, ...Palestine [as] a non-member observer state at the UN...could take Israel to the International Criminal Court over criminal Israel actions in the Occupied territories. Obama was simply observing that as the scales fall from the world’s eyes, Israel will be subject to sanctions, and the US government cannot do anything about it.

Ukraine
Crimea declared its intent to rejoin Russia after the demonstrations that removed President Viktor Yanukovich from office.  Russia Times reported on March 7: Over 65,000 people gathered on Friday for a demonstration in central Moscow to support residents of Ukraine’s Autonomous Republic of Crimea. 

Juan Cole in an Informed Comment March 7 post noted the hypocrisy of US politicians for opposing the Crimean decision as a violation of international law.  He points to Yugoslavia, the Sudan and Iraq as countries where US politicians supported breaking up countries and suggests that George Mitchell’s careful agreement [for Northern Ireland]...would be a good model for keeping Crimea in Ukraine while recognizing Russian interests there.

Central African Republic
The Central African Republic, a land-locked nation of about 4.6 million people, is one of the world's poorest countries.  The Human Development Index,  a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income, places it in 179th place of the 187 countries with data.  These facts make the sectarian violence engulfing the country even more senseless and tragic.  The CAR has been in chaos since Muslim rebels seized power a year ago and then lost it around December as Christian militias fought back...Since then, revenge attacks on the Muslim minority community, including summary executions, torture and looting, have become more common. [The Economist, Feb 15]  A new president, Catherine Samba-Panza, has pledged to put a stop to the violence and to bring reconciliation to the country.  She took office on an interim basis in January but so far the violence has not abated.  Muslims are fleeing to neighboring countries, French troops are trying to maintain some semblance of order and the UN is considering bringing in a large peace-keeping force. With the mass exodus, the Bangui economy has gone into rapid decline, made worse by violence on the roads into the capital that has all but cut the city off from outside supplies.  A recent statement by Oxfam and Action Against Hunger highlighted the increased threat of food shortages in a country where 1.3 million are already in dire need of food. [The Guardian, Feb 14]
(Image of children in refugee camp at Bangui airport is by Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images and appeared in The Guardian Feb 21)

Climate Change
The world's oceans play a major role in maintaining our climate.  They convey heat from warm regions to cold and vice versa.   A disruption in the "thermo-haline" conveyors of the world's oceans and seas can lead to severe, and possibly abrupt, climate change.  Temperature (thermo) and salt (haline) content determine the density of ocean water.  Differences in ocean water density drive this (literally) world-scale conveyor belt.  If this conveyor belt receives a big enough shock - for example, large amounts of fresh water from melting glaciers or increased precipitation - the oceans will experience a decrease in salt content and density.  This will interfere with or shutdown the ocean conveyor belt.  The result would be somewhere between the Younger Dryas event (10-20 degree F. temperature drop) and a return to a full-blown glacial period.  If this catastrophe does occur, the change will be very quick - on the order of a decade.  Now a recent study reported at Smithsonian.com concludes that a surge in freshwater at the surface may have shut down mixing of water layers in the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic or in the more dramatic words at the Daily Kos website - The Antarctic Half of the Global Thermohaline Circulation is Collapsing - adding that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate models have not considered the effects the collapsing production of Antarctic Bottom Water and political policy has not kept up with the IPCC. We are moving rapidly into uncharted waters as the Arctic melts. Global political policies are not keeping up with the rate of change and our models have, to date, underestimated the rate of change. We are witnessing a total failure of global leadership to deal with changes we caused that are spiraling out of control.

Related Links

Obama's Interview with Jeffrey Goldberg: Time Is Running Out
In an hour long interview Thursday in the Oval Office, Obama, borrowing from the Jewish sage Rabbi Hillel, told me that his message to Netanyahu will be this: “If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who?” He then took a sharper tone, saying that if Netanyahu “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach." He added, "It’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible....There comes a point where you can’t manage this anymore, and then you start having to make very difficult choices,” Obama said. “Do you resign yourself to what amounts to a permanent occupation of the West Bank? Is that the character of Israel as a state for a long period of time? Do you perpetuate, over the course of a decade or two decades, more and more restrictive policies in terms of Palestinian movement? Do you place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions?” [Bloomberg View website, Jeffrey Goldberg, March 2]

Central African Republic
Can Catherine Samba-Panza save the Central African Republic? [The Guardian, March 2]

President Eisenhower's Warning About the Military-Industrial Complex
You-Tube of the warning given in his Farewell Address (1961)

Food Stamps, Obamacare, The Ukraine

The Ukraine
Russia is wrong to send troops into the Ukraine.  Not anywhere on the scale of US wrong in invading Iraq, for example, but wrong nonetheless.  The Ukraine and Russia share more than 1400 miles of border and you can see how Russia may have concerns about stability on its door step.

(Map is adapted from ESL-in-Canada's website)

The situation in the Ukraine is complex but here's a brief summary.

• The elected president of the Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, was ousted after demonstrations protesting his cancellation of talks on a European Union trade agreement.  Russia had offered $15 billion in aid to keep the Ukraine in their sphere of influence.  Yanukovich's  sympathies and inclinations lie more with Russia than Europe.  
• Yanukovich's assets and those of 17 others were frozen this morning by the EU, alleging embezzlement of government funds.  
• The Crimean Parliament has voted to leave the Ukraine and join Russia with a referendum set for March 16.  Crimea has a large Russian population and was part of the Soviet Union until 1954, when Nikita Khruschev gave it to the Ukraine. 

The turmoil in the Ukraine is being identified as a restart of the Cold War.  This is utter nonsense.  An editorial in The Nation calls for "the international community [to push] for compromise to prevent this fragile and bitterly divided country from breaking apart."  The Nation notes "We are reaping the bitter fruit of a deeply flawed post–Cold War settlement that looks more like Versailles than Bretton Woods, a settlement inflamed by the shortsighted American decision to expand NATO eastward and pursue other policies aimed at isolating Russia and ignoring Russian interests."

Food Stamps
Democratic governors in New York and Connecticut and the Republican governor of Pennsylvania have taken measures to thwart the Congressional cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.  As explained at philly.com : "The cuts to SNAP delineated in the federal Farm Bill passed last month were being borne by 15 states that operate the "Heat and Eat" program, which coordinates energy assistance with SNAP...Under the program, some of the families that received as little as $1 in federal heating assistance saw increased SNAP benefits...Last month, Congress changed the rules, stipulating in the Farm Bill that a family would have to have at least $20 in heating assistance before receiving increased SNAP benefits."  And that's exactly what these governors have done.  Kudos and let's get the governors of the rest of the states affected by these cuts (see below) to act in a similar manner.

Comedy Central's Jon Stewart has a hilarious take down of Fox News' whining about food stamp recipients.  You can watch it here.

Obamacare
As the well-funded Republican right continues to pour millions into negative ad's against swing state Democratic Senators supportive of the Affordable Care Act and as the do-nothing House of Representatives vote yet again to defund or subvert the program, "Obamacare" enrollments are quietly growing.  As of February 1, enrollments in the Obamacare market place were nearly 3.3 million.  Also, according to ThinkProgress, in what it calls the woodwork effect,: "A new analysis by Avalere Health finds that the Affordable Care Act’s open enrollment season is boosting Medicaid signups even in the states that have refused the health law’s optional Medicaid expansion...All told, between 2.4 million and 3.5 million of the poorest Americans started receiving Medicaid coverage for the first time during the first four months of Obamacare’s enrollment season."  So as of end January, there were an additional 6 million people with health insurance.

ACA proponents are not done yet.  MoveOn.org has mounted a campaign to get non-Medicaid-expansion states to change their decisions.  The advantages to the states seem to be coming more and more clear: "Faced with the prospect of tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, in federal funding, states are racing to find politically palatable ways to expand Medicaid. [Washington Post, March 4].  Even the brilliant op-ed writers for self-proclaimed "capitalist tool" Forbes are changing their tune.  Take a look at these two headlines:
Nov. 11 - "Obamacare Will Be Repealed Well In Advance Of The 2014 Elections"
Feb. 12 - "New Signup Numbers Show Why Obamacare May Be Impossible To Repeal"

But don't expect the right-wing to throw in the towel.  They will continue to spend tens of millions in negative ads even though as Kevin Drum wonders "whether there's a single genuine Obamacare horror story out there, given that virtually every yarn promoted by Republicans or conservatives about people hurt by the Affordable Care Act has deflated like a pricked balloon on the merest examination." [LA Times, Feb 20]


In the final set of rules published Wednesday, the Obama administration will "let people with health insurance plans that don't comply with Affordable Care Act standards keep them through October 2017 if their states allow it."  [CNBC, March 5]

The enrollment deadline - after which an individual without health care insurance may be subject to a fine - is March 31.  If you haven't got insurance yet, here's a link to healthcare.gov to help you get started. The site works.

Other info
"Those “heat and eat” states are: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin. Some lists compiled by non-profits lists add or subtract a state or two from that lineup." [Washington Post, Feb 5]

Finally, a couple of links from the Daily Kos website:

Minimum wage increase would cut food stamp costs beyond Republican's wildest dreams 
(based on a report by the Center for American Progress)

Obamacare boosting household income and  spending (based on an article that first appeared in the Wall Street Journal)

The cuts to SNAP delineated in the federal Farm Bill passed last month were being borne by 15 states that operate the "Heat and Eat" program, which coordinates energy assistance with SNAP. Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey are Heat and Eat states.
Under the program, some of the families that received as little as $1 in federal heating assistance saw increased SNAP benefits.
Last month, Congress changed the rules, stipulating in the Farm Bill that a family would have to have at least $20 in heating assistance before receiving increased SNAP benefits.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20140306_In_surprising_move__Corbett_forestalls_deep_cuts_in_food_stamps.html#A2ZZrfpZ6fFPkBkp.99

The cuts to SNAP delineated in the federal Farm Bill passed last month were being borne by 15 states that operate the "Heat and Eat" program, which coordinates energy assistance with SNAP. Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey are Heat and Eat states.
Under the program, some of the families that received as little as $1 in federal heating assistance saw increased SNAP benefits.
Last month, Congress changed the rules, stipulating in the Farm Bill that a family would have to have at least $20 in heating assistance before receiving increased SNAP benefits.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20140306_In_surprising_move__Corbett_forestalls_deep_cuts_in_food_stamps.html#A2ZZrfpZ6fFPkBkp.99

The cuts to SNAP delineated in the federal Farm Bill passed last month were being borne by 15 states that operate the "Heat and Eat" program, which coordinates energy assistance with SNAP. Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey are Heat and Eat states.
Under the program, some of the families that received as little as $1 in federal heating assistance saw increased SNAP benefits.
Last month, Congress changed the rules, stipulating in the Farm Bill that a family would have to have at least $20 in heating assistance before receiving increased SNAP benefits.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20140306_In_surprising_move__Corbett_forestalls_deep_cuts_in_food_stamps.html#A2ZZrfpZ6fFPkBkp.99

Sunday Roundup - March 2, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at voter suppression, the plight of Palestinian refugees in Syria, climate change and coffee, Britain's diminished role in Europe, the protests in Venezuela, and the Carnival in Rio.

"The War Against Early Voting Heats Up"
Along with the voter id laws, the second prong in the Republican voter suppression effort is the reduction in early voting hours.  In a February 26 article in The American Prospect, Brent Mock writes: "The ink is barely dry on the report from President Obama’s election administration commission and states are already disregarding its blue-ribbon recommendations, namely around early voting."  The trigger for the article was Ohio's Secretary of State Jon Husted's release of a new voting schedule that deletes both of Ohio's pre-Election Day Sundays from the early voting formula.  "The Sunday erasures come in conflict with the 'souls to the polls' black church-led campaigns to take their congregants to vote after worship services....In 2008, over 77 percent of people who voted early in Ohio were African-American....The early voting cuts come on top of another controversial decision to move one of the state’s most heavily used early voting locations from downtown Cincinnati to a neighborhood that voting rights advocates say is far less accessible for those of low-income and the disabled."  Other red states are also working to reduce African-American turnout.  "In Georgia, legislators have introduced a bill that would reduce the early voting period from 21 days to six. When civil rights groups appeared at a hearing to voice their opposition to the bill, they were not allowed to speak, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund."

Food Queue in Syria's Yarmouk Refugee Camp
"It is a vision of unimaginable desolation: a crowd of men, women and children stretching as far as the eye can see into the war-devastated landscape of Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. A photograph released on Wednesday by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, shows the scene when thousands of desperate Palestinians trapped inside the camp on the edge of the Syrian capital emerged to besiege aid workers attempting to distribute food parcels." 18,000 people have been trapped in the camp since last July and many are now weak, malnourished and prone to disease. "Yarmouk camp, about five miles from the centre of Damascus, was home to more than 100,000 registered Palestinian refugees before the war. Many have fled to other areas of Syria, or abroad. Some have made their way to Gaza."  [The Guardian, February 26]

Climate Change and Your Morning Joe
An avid coffee drinker, I was not at all happy to read this in a Mother Jones/Slate/Climate Desk article:  "Climate change has already taken the Winter Olympics, your Eggos, and the McDonald's dollar menu, and now it's coming for your coffee, too.  An epic drought—Brazil's worst in decades—is threatening exports from the world's largest coffee exporter and driving up wholesale prices worldwide...Arabica coffee futures are up more than 50 percent in just the last two months in response. The current run on coffee is an example of the kinds of follow-on effects to be expected as the climate warms and rainfall patterns become more erratic. The ongoing lack of rainfall, coupled with record high temperatures across the whole of southeast South America during the current Southern Hemisphere summer, is just the kind of extreme weather event that's been becoming more common over recent years."   [Mother Jones, Feb 27]  Okay, it's admittedly not the worst thing that will happen as climate change kicks in over the coming years - but it is a reminder of how everyday life is going to change.  (As if this winter hasn't been enough!)

Britain's Role in the Europe Union
In an article adapted from his new book for Der Spiegel Online, Labour Party member Will Straw writes that, given its phenomenal success "in shaping [European Union] institutions to British strategic goals,...Britain might have been expected to play a constructive role in helping the EU deal with the two most fundamental challenges of the current crisis: [economic] growth and democracy."  Instead the current Tory government "has created a degree of instability for the British business community by calling for a repatriation of powers [that is to return powers that Tories believe should reside with the UK to the UK]  and a referendum on the continued membership of the EU."  On the whole, the EU austerity policies have so far failed to achieve either economic growth or a reduction in public debt while inflicting "painful cuts to public spending". Straw notes several ways that the UK could have helped in the Euro-zone economic crisis.  Among the measures advanced by Mr. Straw, the EU should have encouraged "greater flexibility on fiscal targets so that countries suffering rapid increases in employment could ease off spending cuts (a policy belatedly adopted by the Commission) , developed a more stringent and symmetrical monitoring of current account imbalances to prevent core countries like Germany building up massive surpluses at the expense of deficits on the periphery [Spain, Greece, etc.]", and "looking forward, the UK should encourage the appointment of a new growth commissioner within the next European Commission."

Venezuelan Protests
What started as student protests demanding greater security after an allegation of attempted rape in early February escalated when hard-liners in Venezuela's opposition movement joined the demonstrations to protest the government's leftist policies.  Anti-government factions took to the streets to protest the high inflation rate (~52%), the shortage of basic items and the high crime rate - all problems that have been endemic to Venezuela for decades.  More than a dozen people have been killed in the ensuing violence.  Pro-government demonstrations and marches have also been held.  In an attempt to balance its coverage, The Guardian also presented some of "the other side" of the story which has gotten scant attention in the Western press.  On February 24, The Guardian published a letter signed by a range of figures "including former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and the filmmaker John Pilger denouncing the violence, and pointing to the links between prominent opposition leaders and the attempted coup of 2002."  On February 27, The Guardian's "guardianwitness" blog presented views of people who did not take part in the protests.  Here are brief extracts from a couple of them:

"As a student in the nineties I participated in several demos. We used to fight for free access to education, healthcare and such. Under Chávez’s government we improved as a society in many of these aspects." - blogger Coromoto Jaraba Pineda

"Doing all this for the ideal that everything is going to be perfect if Maduro goes is stupid: corruption, economic situation and insecurity are deep problems that comes from Venezuelan culture, including the economical situation, because inflation and shortages are a result of speculation and corruption." - Ana Maria Castro via GuardianWitness, 22 February 2014


Carnival in Rio

 (Brazilian Tourist Board image is of the samba competition that traditionally kicks off the long weekend and appeared in The Independent.)

The Venezuelan protests may have throttled the Carnival celebrations there, but Rio's Carnival is getting into full swing.  The festivities began Friday night and before they end on Tuesday, Brazil will play host to millions of visitors coming to enjoy the parades and costumes.  "In defiance of the economic turmoil and political unrest that has marred the country’s image on the international stage in recent months, some regions are [expecting] visitor numbers to “more than double” this year, in a much-needed boost to the nation’s tourism industry.  The biggest party will centre on Rio de Janeiro, and the city expects to welcome 920,000 tourists over the course of the long weekend."  [The Independent, Feb 27]