Comunicas.- In the year 2000, 189 world leaders came together to make a historic promise: they would form a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty through a series of eight targets, all to be achieved by the deadline of 2015. These targets, which have become known as the Millennium Development Goals, are in the words of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon “ambitious but feasible.” From promoting universal education, to combating HIV/AIDS and increasing environmental sustainability, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) embody a comprehensive set of human rights — rights which every person on this planet should have the opportunity to enjoy by 2015.

In just a few weeks, world leaders will once again convene with the primary objective of accelerating progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). This upcoming meeting, called the Millennium Development Goal Summit, “is expected to undertake a comprehensive review of successes, best practices and lessons learned, obstacles and gaps, challenges and opportunities, ‘leading to concrete strategies for action.’”

In advance of the MDG Summit, we at Change.org aim to provide in-depth analysis of each of the Millennium Development Goals, their progress and their shortcomings. So, without further ado, I present to you Goal #1.

GOAL #1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

Among the most daunting of all the goals, the first MDG is really two ambitions rolled into one. The three targets used to define this goal are:

1) Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day

2) Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people

3) Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

So what would the world look like if this first goal were achieved? According to the Millennium Project, which was commissioned by the United Nations Secretary-General in 2002 to develop a concrete action plan for the world to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the world would look, well, a lot better. If the first goal were achieved by 2015, 500 million people would be lifted out of extreme poverty and 300 million would no longer suffer from hunger. Lifting the burden of grinding poverty and hunger for so many would contribute to economic growth and renewal unlike any we have ever seen.

Though the scope of this goal and the number of people it has the potential to benefit seem daunting, we have made some real progress. According to the 2010 Millennium Development Goals Report, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day (adjusted for purchasing power parity and measured for 2005 international prices) decreased between 1990 and 2005 from 46% of people in the world, to 27%. This dramatic drop shows just how achievable the first target of Goal #1 is. What’s more, some regions have already achieved success in halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty. Southeast and Eastern Asia have achieved and even surpassed the goal, and Northern Africa is nearly there. While the global economic and financial crisis that began in 2008 slowed progress, the momentum continues.

Progress on Target #2 has moved more slowly. The bursting of the housing bubble in the U.S. in 2007 cascaded around the world, crippling economies and forcing millions out of work. Among those who are employed, too many are part of the ranks of the ‘working poor’ — those who are part of households where members still live below $1.25 a day. Though most regions will likely not reach this target by 2015, coordinated efforts of countries to respond to the crisis have proved instrumental in averting even greater social and economic hardship.

When food prices spiked in 2008, Target #3 was similarly derailed. The number of hungry around the world was pushed to a record-breaking 1 billion, and those hardest hit were the already desperately poor. Though advances are being made, international food prices have not yet stabilized and progress is not fast enough. Before the food crisis, many regions were on track to achieving Target #3. To get us back on this track will require the commitment of global leaders, national governments and individual citizens alike.

And that’s where you come in.

In 2009, 173 million people “stood up” to be counted among those who have pledged their support to eradicate poverty. You can show your own support in advance of the upcoming Summit by sharing your demands and expectations with your leaders and the world. Through the Millennium Development Campaign, you can join with fellow citizens of the globe to declare that “We will no longer stay seated or silent in the face of poverty and the broken promises to end it!”

As Victor Roy introduced at the end of June, the Human Rights cause will be offering insight on each of the MDGs over the next couple of weeks. So keep an eye out — there’s much more to come!

By Meredith Slater / Via Change

Comunicas.- Something important happened this week: Republican leaders in Congress finally came out for something.

Don’t knock it. This is progress. We know what they’re against: anything President Obama is for. He’s for tax breaks for small business; they’re against ‘em. He’s for extending unemployment benefits; they’re against it. He’s for emergency funds to states for keeping cops, firemen, teachers, and nurses on the job; they vote no.

As Vice President Joe Biden observed, “I know what the Republicans are against. I have no notion of what they’re for.” Well, now we do. As articulated by Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, they are for extending George Bush’s tax cuts to the top 2 percent of American taxpayers. And that singular priority speaks volumes about the intellectual poverty of the Republican Party today.

After all, the wealthiest of the wealthy have already enjoyed an undeserved free ride for 10 years, gobbling up a huge tax break that could easily have paid for universal health care or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Making those tax breaks permanent, or even extending them for another 10 years, is bad public policy.

As payback to major campaign donors, Bush forced his tax cuts through early in his presidency by means of “reconciliation” in the Senate — the same process Republicans ripped Democrats for using to pass health care reform legislation. He insisted they were only “temporary” — they expire at the end of 2010 — because it was the only way he could sell them politically and because he assumed Congress would automatically renew them 10 years later.

Not so fast. President Obama supports extending the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans, those making $200,000 or less ($250,000 for joint filers). But he opposes a continued tax holiday for the top 2 percent, the wealthiest of Americans. Reason? Because it would cost too much, we’d get too little in return, and only a handful of Americans would benefit.

According to the independent Tax Policy Center, extending tax cuts for the rich would cost an additional $700 billion over the next 10 years. Nearly all of it would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, those with incomes of more than $500,000 a year. And, of that group, the majority of tax cuts would go to the wealthiest one-tenth of 1 percent. Which translates, over the next decade, into an average $3 million windfall each year for precisely 120,000 people.

Not only have Republicans made pimping tax cuts for the rich their number one issue, they do so with a set of lies that only George W. Bush could love: this is no time for raising taxes; there’s no need to worry about the deficit; letting Bush tax breaks expire will hurt small business; and extending tax breaks to the wealthy will actually create jobs. No, no, no, and no.

First, a reality check. No matter how many times Boehner and McConnell say the opposite, allowing the Bush cuts to expire does not amount to a tax increase. It simply means the 10-year tax privilege enjoyed by the privileged few will end, as the law states, and their tax rate will return from today’s top 35 percent (which few pay, anyway) to 39.6 percent — but only on income more than $250,000 a year.

And, no doubt, that’ll save taxpayers a lot of money. Most people don’t understand that a tax cut is actually a government expense, which we have to pay for somehow. Republicans would simply pile that $700 billion cost onto an already dangerously bloated federal deficit — even though, just last month, they opposed adding $34 billion to the deficit to extend unemployment benefits.

Equally hypocritical are Republican claims that ending tax cuts for the rich would hurt small business. As Vice President Joe Biden said this week, that’s “a bunch of malarkey.” Only 3 percent of small businesses make more than $500,000 a year in profits — and most of them are big law firms, not Mom and Pop storefronts.

Their final argument about creating new jobs is the most absurd of all. Just look around you. If tax cuts for the wealthy really create jobs, where are they? Instead, under George W. Bush, America lost 8 million jobs.

Forget their twisted logic. In the end, it boils down to this: middle-class Americans need a tax cut. The top 2 percent of Americans don’t.

Bill Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a new book, “Toxic Talk,” available in bookstores now. You can hear “The Bill Press Show” at his Web site: billpressshow.com. His email address is: bill@billpress.com .

(c) 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Comunicas.- On the last night of August, the president used an Oval Office speech to boost a policy of perpetual war.

Hours later, the New York Times front page offered a credulous gloss for the end of “the seven-year American combat mission in Iraq.” The first sentence of the coverage described the speech as saying “that it is now time to turn to pressing problems at home.” The story went on to assert that Obama “used the moment to emphasize that he sees his primary job as addressing the weak economy and other domestic issues — and to make clear that he intends to begin disengaging from the war in Afghanistan next summer.”

But the speech gave no real indication of a shift in priorities from making war to creating jobs. And the oratory “made clear” only the repetition of vague vows to “begin” disengaging from the Afghanistan war next summer. In fact, top administration officials have been signaling that only token military withdrawals are apt to occur in mid-2011, and Obama said nothing to the contrary.

While now trumpeting the nobility of an Iraq war effort that he’d initially disparaged as “dumb,” Barack Obama is polishing a halo over the Afghanistan war, which he touts as very smart. In the process, the Oval Office speech declared that every U.S. war — no matter how mendacious or horrific — is worthy of veneration.

Obama closed the speech with a tribute to “an unbroken line of heroes” stretching “from Khe Sanh to Kandahar — Americans who have fought to see that the lives of our children are better than our own.” His reference to the famous U.S. military outpost in South Vietnam was a chilling expression of affinity for another march of folly.

With his commitment to war in Afghanistan, President Obama is not only on the wrong side of history. He is also now propagating an exculpatory view of any and all U.S. war efforts — as if the immoral can become the magnificent by virtue of patriotic alchemy.

A century ago, William Dean Howells wrote: “What a thing it is to have a country that can’t be wrong, but if it is, is right, anyway!”

During the presidency of George W. Bush, “the war on terror” served as a rationale for establishing warfare as a perennial necessity. The Obama administration may have shelved the phrase, but the basic underlying rationales are firmly in place. With American troop levels in Afghanistan near 100,000, top U.S. officials are ramping up rhetoric about “taking the fight to” the evildoers.

The day before the Oval Office speech, presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs talked to reporters about “what this drawdown means to our national security efforts in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia and around the world as we take the fight to Al Qaeda.”

The next morning, Obama declared at Fort Bliss: “A lot of families are now being touched in Afghanistan. We’ve seen casualties go up because we’re taking the fight to Al Qaeda and the Taliban and their allies.” And, for good measure, Obama added that “now, under the command of General Petraeus, we have the troops who are there in a position to start taking the fight to the terrorists.”

If, nine years after 9/11, we are supposed to believe that U.S. forces can now “start” taking the fight to “the terrorists,” this is truly war without end. And that’s the idea.

Nearly eight years ago, in November 2002, retired U.S. Army Gen. William Odom appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” program and told viewers: “Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It’s a tactic. It’s about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we’re going to win that war. We’re not going to win the war on terrorism.”

With his Aug. 31 speech, Obama became explicit about the relationship between reduced troop levels in Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan. “We will disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda, while preventing Afghanistan from again serving as a base for terrorists,” he said. “And because of our drawdown in Iraq, we are now able to apply the resources necessary to go on offense.” This is the approach of endless war.

While Obama was declaring that “our most urgent task is to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work,” I went to a National Priorities Project webpage and looked at cost-of-war counters spinning like odometers in manic overdrive. The figures for the “Cost of War in Afghanistan” — already above $329 billion — are now spinning much faster than the ones for war in Iraq.

One day in March 1969, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist spoke at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Our government has become preoccupied with death,” George Wald said, “with the business of killing and being killed.” More than four decades later, how much has really changed?

“A Speech for Endless War”

By Norman Solomon / Via Counter Punch

Comunicas.- With 322 soldiers killed in Afghanistan since January, 2010 is now the deadliest year for U.S. troops since the invasion began in 2001.

According to the website icasualties.org, U.S. troops account for 317 of the 521 foreign casualties reported by the occupation forces, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The number of U.S. soldiers killed in the Central Asian nation drastically increased in the last five days, with the deaths of 22 soldiers in various clashes and bombings attributed to Taliban rebels.

Insurgents have increased their actions, above all in southern Afghanistan, according to Gen. David Petraeus, who commands the coalition, made up of some 140,000 soldiers, two-thirds of them U.S. forces.

The total death toll reported since the start of the invasion and occupation in 2001 is 2,057, with 1,269 from the United States.

Via PL

Comunicas.- It’s not for nothing the U.S. Southwest is called the “Saudi Arabia of solar energy.” The vast deserts of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Utah have some of the highest solar radiation levels in the world, not to mention wide-open tracks of federally-owned land just asking for development. It should be a second coming of the gold rush, right?

In reality, turning that solar potential into a solar reality has been slower than many clean energy advocates would hope. That’s a good thing to some extent: Environmental groups don’t want to see vast panel arrays erected in the middle of the endangered desert tortoise’s desert brush turf (or the endangered giant kangaroo rat’s, for that matter). And regardless of what environmentalists want, for years a huge solar application backlog built up and languished in the Bush administration’s public lands bureau, which could only see through its oil-and-gas tunnel.

Two years ago, Team Obama promised to change this raw deal. Stimulus dollars in hand, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar came to work with environmentalists to fast-track approval for dozens of ambitious solar projects and demarcate pre-approved renewable energy “zones.”

This month, we are finally beginning to see the fruition of this paperwork frenzy.

The biggest example of that was just reported this week. Scott Streater of Greenwire tells us that federal regulators are in the final stages of approving what would be the largest solar power plant in the world. Located in southeast California, the 1,000 megawatt Blythe Solar Power Project would power some 800,000 homes at a cost of $6 billion. When it’s finished in six years, this project alone would nearly double the nation’s current solar capacity and generate three-times more electricity than the next largest solar plant today.

Other plants will also follow in the Blythe projects wake. As the article reports, in the month of August alone the Interior Department has or expects to put out the final environmental impact reports for the Blythe solar project and six others in California as it rushes towards final approval before a deadline for using stimulus dollar expires at the end of 2010.

The environmental impact of the Blythe solar thermal project is pretty decent but it’s not zero. The developers are buying up and protecting other desert land in exchange for their project’s vast footprint, which covers 7,000 acres of Sonoron scrub used as golden eagle foraging ground. Still, some conservation and wildlife groups have remaining concerns about a  portion of the Blythe project that will overtake the ephemeral desert washes” that supply mountain water to the Colorado River. They recommend the project be down-scaled (pdf).

I want to agree, because these conservation groups, including The Wilderness Society and the Natural Resources Defense Council, are the experts, and I generally trust them in other matters. But I also know that climate change poses the biggest threat of all to wildlife and to the Colorado River. That’s not to say we can’t do Big Solar and still do it responsibly. But there is something to be said for the idea of Big Solar to begin with. We need to support a renewable energy industry that can go head-to-head against Big Oil and Big Coal. “World’s largest” is an inspiring place to be, and if we truly want the Southwest to be the world’s solar capital, we have to think big.

“World’s Largest Solar Plant Nears Approval in California Desert”

By Jess Leber / Via Change

Comunicas.- If you are worried about garlic breath, drink a glass of milk, say scientists who claim it can stop the lingering odour.

In tests with raw and cooked cloves, milk “significantly reduced” levels of the sulphur compounds that give garlic its flavour and pungent smell.

The authors told the Journal of Food Science it is the water and fat in milk that deodorises the breath.

For optimum effect, sip the milk as you eat the garlic, they say.

Mixing milk with garlic in the mouth before swallowing had a higher odour neutralising effect than drinking milk after eating the garlic in the trial.

And full-fat milk provided better results than skimmed milk or just water, according to breath samples taken from a volunteer.

One of the compounds milk counteracts is allyl methyl sulphide or AMS.

This cannot be broken down in the gut during digestion, and so it is released from the body in the breath and sweat.

Although garlic is good for you – containing several vitamins and minerals – once eaten, it can cause bad breath and body odour lasting hours or even days.

Plain water, and some foods, such as mushrooms and basil, may also help neutralise garlic smells, the study authors Sheryl Barringer and Areerat Hansanugrum say.

But it is the mixture of fat and water together that works best, the Ohio State University team say.

“The results suggest that drinking beverages or foods with higher water and/or fat content such as milk may help reduce the malodorous odour in breath after consumption of garlic and mask the garlic flavour during eating,” they say.

Via BBC

Comunicas.- Dr. Frances Negrón-Muntaner of Columbia University is a world-renowned scholar and filmmaker. She has been named as one of the nation’s “100 Most influential Latinos” by Hispanic Business. Born in Puerto Rico, her work spans several fields, including mass media, literature, cultural criticism, migration, and politics. Antony Adolf of Change.org had the opportunity to ask Dr. Negrón-Muntaner about her work in relation to pressing crises in Latin America and the U.S.

For her work as a scholar and filmmaker, Dr. Negrón-Muntaner has received Ford, Truman, Scripps Howard, Rockefeller, and Pew fellowships. Major foundations and public television funding sources have also supported her work. Since the late 1980s, Dr. Negrón-Muntaner’s work has been considered an important resource in addressing sexuality, colonialism, nationalism, and migration in Caribbean and Latino diasporic contexts.

Among her works is the 1994 award-winning film Brincando el Charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican, the groundbreaking edited collection Puerto Rican Jam: Rethinking Colonialism and Nationalism (1997), and Boricua Pop (Choice Award 2004), a collection of essays on contemporary U.S. popular culture.

Antony Adolf: Your work addresses Caribbean and Latino diasporic colonialism, nationalism, migration and sexuality. Could you tell us about high points and low points in your experience in these fields?

Dr. Negrón-Muntaner: Throughout my public life, I have had quite a few run-ins with dominant thinking on both the left and right. For instance, in 1997 I co-wrote a political reflection signed by a six other academics and artists that argued that statehood could be a decolonizing option for Puerto Rico. This virtually made me an outcast in many cultural and intellectual circles for years. Among other things, I was accused of being a CIA agent. Most recently, when I wrote and criticized the unlawful detention of Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, I faced not only incredulous stares from audiences but also at least one prominent journal rejecting my thoughts on the topic.

The fact that people who know better would resort to slander and/or censorship made me realize how easy it is for a community to turn against its own. This and other similar experiences also allowed me to see that intellectuals are no more enlightened than other people when they felt threatened. So, like Kermit the frog, I learned to be comfortable with being green.

Antony Adolf: What do you believe the future has in store for U.S.-Puerto Rican relations, and the future of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. within immigrant rights contexts? What is your report “from the ground,” so to speak, as well as from within the academy?

Dr. Negrón-Muntaner: Puerto Rico is in the worst shape that I have seen it in my lifetime. One of the most telling signs of the crisis is that people, particularly among the young and educated, are leaving the island in great numbers. Demographers are already predicting that the 2010 census will reveal that the island experienced a decline in population since 2000 and that approximately 270,000 people have left Puerto Rico over the last decade.

Linked to this decrease in population is a sense of hopelessness that I have also never felt so strongly before. There is a saying that hope is the last thing to go and I am afraid that it is gone for many Puerto Ricans. In contrast to earlier migrations, where people returned during their retirement, people today are leaving never to return. People simply don’t see a way out of what feels like a perpetual crisis.

When it comes to Puerto Rican politics, however, it is quite a risky proposition to predict outcomes. Puerto Rican voters are world famous for upsetting expectations. For instance, despite the fact that most Puerto Ricans would consider themselves cultural nationalists, in 1991 voters rejected the idea of amending the Puerto Rican constitution to protect Puerto Rico’s culture and continued independent participation in international sports. The majority of voters surprisingly voted against the amendment because they felt it could be an obstacle to statehood.  Yet, seven years later, a majority of voters rejected all presumably possible status options, including statehood, to determine Puerto Rico’s future relationship to the United States. To Washington’s amazement, Puerto Ricans chose the so-called fifth column, “none of the above.”

So, the only thing that I could say is that if you look at trends since the 1940s, the only status option that grows in support, albeit slowly, is statehood. If the situation continues to deteriorate — pushing Puerto Rico closer to becoming a narco-state — and new migration experience produces a stronger sense of belonging to the U.S. than prior ones, it may be that the statehood trend will become a movement rather than an electoral franchise. But, you may not want to bet money on it. Many people feel so disappointed in politics that it may be the last place that they look to for solutions.

Antony Adolf: What, in your opinion, can realistically be done about narco-trafficking in Latin America?

Dr. Negrón-Muntaner: Due to the great complexity of the human relationship to narcotics — the fact that for some they produce pleasure and a sense of freedom — there will probably never be a perfect set of policies to address drug consumption and production. At the same time, there are a number of things that Latin American states can consider to address the narco-trafficking crisis.

Decriminalize consumption; facilitate access to medical and other support services; an persuade the U.S. to do the same. Almost any substance can become addictive and many legal substances are as addictive, if not more, than some illegal ones. In this regard, distinguishing substances as legal or illegal is arbitrary and not a very useful basis for policy-making. And while I do not think that addicted drug consumers should be forcefully medicalized, for those who wish to control or stop their addiction, access to mental health, social, and medical services will be more enabling than prison time.

Regulate the drug trade and enact comprehensive socio-economic reform. The illegal means and ways of narco-trafficking fuels much of the violence associated with the drug trade as it creates alliances between drug, paramilitary, and corrupt state organizations as well as offers a rationale for Latin American governments to militarize their societies and occupy communities. Moreover, decriminalization of the drug trade will likely make the trade less attractive as it would bring profits down and free people to pursue other options.

Yet, in taking steps towards regulating rather than criminalizing the drug trade, it is important to know that regulation will not eliminate all so-called organized crime groups. These groups will probably gravitate toward other products producing new forms of violence. This is one of the main reasons why states moving toward regulation will also need to consider policies that decrease economic inequality and social exclusion. Otherwise, many of the foot-soldiers that that are displaced by the drug trade and do not have other options, will sign up for the next big exploit.

Antony Adolf: How does the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) you helped found work with other groups with similar goals to advance common issues in the U.S. and Latin America? And globally?

Dr. Negrón-Muntaner: The NALIP was founded in 1999 to address the still persistent discrimination faced by Latinos in the U.S. media industries and create opportunities for Latino media producers. Just to give a sense of why people felt a need for this organization, we can consider a stunning fact: Despite the dramatic increase in the U.S. Latino population in the U.S. since the 1970s, per capita, there are as many – and sometimes less –the number of Latinos working in the industry today thanis the same as four decades ago.

Given the bleak picture, the original impulse was to create an organization that focused on the U.S. But since its founding, NALIP chapters have sprung in several other countries, including Canada, Spain, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. In every context, NALIP has worked with the chapters to addressstrengthen local needs of artistic development and connect people to build communities capable of surmountingso they can prevail over common problems such as lack of resources, infrastructure, and information.

At this time, I think NALIP is one of the most effective organizations serving independent producers of any background because it has been successful in buildingcreating the most important thing to any media artist: a passionate creative community what loves art and loves to see people succeed. This drive is so strong that if I was ever in any kind of jam in a city where I did not know anyone, the one phone number that I would like to have in my pocket is that of a local NALIP member.  I am sure that s/he will get me out of it.

Antony Adolf: How has your academic background in sociology, anthropology and comparative literary studies shaped the choice and methods of execution of the projects you carry out as a filmmaker and scholar? What would you say to aspiring professionals in these regards?

Dr. Negrón-Muntaner: My multi-disclipinarity comes in part from my colonial upbringing. When you are trying to look into questions that are often ignored, dismissed or neglected by mainstream thinking, you become omnivorous. Disciplinary boundaries are not very important. You are hungry for anything useful and you will devour it when you find it. Also, when you look at things from what some have called the colonial divide, you tend to see through the seams of authority, including academic authority. So, you may attempt to address the limitations of one discipline with the insights of another.

Perhaps the biggest impact of this on how I approach my work is that I tend to immediately place texts in various contexts and bring together materials that are rarely linked together. I do not do this “on purpose” like the classic surrealists did. Rather, it is something that happens because having made it a habit to cross intellectual lines, I follow the trail to wherever it leads, irrespective of medium, discipline, and consequence — which is something that I would recommend to anyone starting out.

Dr. Negrón-Muntaner has also served as a columnist for El Diario/La Prensa (New York), The San Juan Star, and El Mundo. She has been widely interviewed in print, radio, and on television in such venues as NPR, CNN, Univisión, Variety, and The Miami Herald. At present, Dr. Negrón-Muntaner teaches at Columbia University’s Department of English and Comparative Literature and at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Puerto Rico (1986), a master’s degree in film and anthropology at Temple University, Philadelphia (1991, 1994), and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University, New Brunswick (2000).

By Antony Adolf /  Via Change

Comunicas.- Market extremists argue that the private sector can do almost everything better than governments. The most extreme do not concede the qualifier “almost” and argue that even the police and army should be privatized.

The growth of private security companies (PSC) is generally seen as a result of the success of extreme market arguments.

Less commented upon is a parallel growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in healthcare, education and social services development, especially in the Third World, that was once provided by public institutions.

Interestingly, at least one insider has linked the two. An advisor to ArmorGroup and former NGO employee, James Fennell, explains these organizations similar historical trajectory: “The increasing role of commercial security companies may be viewed in a similar vein to the increased policy and technical input of NGOs over the past two decades to the provision of official relief and development assistance to Southern nations.”

Beyond similar ideological roots, PSCs and NGOs often have more direct ties. Recently, CARE, Save the Children, CARITAS and World Vision all hired PSCs to protect their operations abroad.

Worried about their image Western NGOs generally prefer to conceal their ties to PSCs but a number of technical studies shed light on the topic. One survey found that “every major international humanitarian organization (defined as the UN humanitarian agencies and the largest international NGOs) has paid for armed security in at least one operational context, and approximately 22% of the major humanitarian organizations reported using armed security services during the last year [2007].”

USAID required the NGOs it contracted in post-occupation Iraq to hire private security. According to Corey Levine, a human-rights consultant, “My organization, a small NGO working to build the capacity of Iraq’s civil society, was no exception. Approximately 40 percent of our $60 million budget went to protecting the 15 international staff. Our security company was South African.”

CARE USA also hired former South African military personnel to protect their operation in Iraq. Peter Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, describes the militarization of NGO work in Iraq. “The extent to which things have changed is illustrated by one non-governmental humanitarian organization that hired a PMF [private military firm] in Iraq to protect its facilities and staff, a contract which included the NGOs hiring snipers.”

The occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan significantly increased NGO-PSC ties. In 2006 Singer noted, “Industry representatives estimate that approximately 25 percent of the ‘high-end’ firms that provide armed services and over 50 percent of firms providing logistical support have worked for humanitarian clients.” ArmorGroup, Global Risk Strategies, RONCO, Control Risks Group, Erinys, Hart Security, Lifeguard, MPRI, KROLL, Olive, Southern Cross, Triple Canopy and Blackwater have apparently all worked for humanitarian organizations.

ArmorGroup is an NGO favorite. In 2002 its clients included UNICEF, CARE, CARITAS and the Red Cross. ArmorGroup markets itself to NGOs. They’ve hired a former CARE UK official, James Fennell, and claim to be an industry leader in setting ethical standards. While this may be true, the company has seen its share of scandals. Last August one of its employees shot and killed two colleagues and wounded his Iraqi interpreter. Before joining ArmorGroup Danny Fitzsimons had a number of run-ins with the law in England and was let go by another PSC for unstable behavior. Corporate Mercenaries describes another scandal: “Defence Systems Colombia (DSC), a subsidiary of DSL (now ArmorGroup), was implicated in providing detailed intelligence to the notorious XVIth Brigade of the Colombian army, identifying groups opposed to [oil company] BPs presence in the region of Casanare. This intelligence has been linked to executions and disappearances.”

Southern Cross is another PSC working for aid agencies that portrays itself as an ethical-minded enterprise. But it also has a murky past. Southern Cross was founded in Sierra Leone in 1999 by Cobus Claasens, an officer at Executive Outcomes, which was created by former Special Forces from apartheid South Africa.

Before beyond disbanded Executive Outcomes was the face of all that is wrong with PSCs. Today, that distinction is held by Xe Services, formerly Blackwater, which has its own ties to NGOs. A 2006 Humanitarian Policy Group report claimed Blackwater had been contracted by humanitarian groups and in February Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) Minister, Bashir Bilour, admitted that “Blackwater is present in Pakistan and is operating in the NWFP as well as other areas. Bilour said that Blackwater was engaged in guarding U.S. consulate staff and foreign NGO workers.”

Any group claiming a “humanitarian” or “development” purpose should obviously not hire Blackwater, but where should the line be drawn? Contracting even the most principled PSC opens up a series of ethical questions.

By hiring PSCs are humanitarian organizations endorsing the booming private security business? PSCs are generally keen to discuss their ties to NGOs because they believe it helps “legitimate their business.”

Koenraad Van Brabant asks a more important question. By hiring PSCs are NGOs “contributing to increased wider, public security” or “the privatization of security, whereby those who are able to pay can buy security while others have to live in fear”? NGO personnel may have the means to purchase security, but this is not a luxury afforded to most.

Reliant on contracts from Western governments NGOs often follow the military into war zones. In these settings they are often perceived as hostile agents of an occupying power. As a result they need security.

Is it really any surprise that NGOs, which replace public institutions delivering services turn to PSCs, which do the same?

“The Mercenaries and the NGOs”

Por Yves Engler / Via Counter Punch

Comunicas.- A CIA memo published Wednesday on the Wikileaks website addresses what would happen if it became internationally known that the United States exports terrorism.

The three-page secret document titled “What If Foreigners See the United States as an ‘Exporter of Terrorism?’” and dated February 2 of this year, says that the phenomenon of exporting terrorism is not new in Washington.

The memo also says that it has not only been associated with Muslim groups or individuals from the Middle East, Africa, or ethnic groups of southern Asia.

The report, prepared by a special division of a CIA unit called Red Cell, lists a number of cases of terrorism exported by the United States.

These include attacks by individuals based in the United States or financiers of third parties to commit these crimes.

This position contradicts the self-proclaimed war on terrorism initiated by former President George W. Bush after the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.

The document reveals the White House’s double standard on this issue and, according to the publication, could lead foreign governments to avoid cooperating with Washington on these matters.

On July 25, Wikileaks published about 76,000 classified documents on the Pentagon’s war on Afghanistan and promised to release 15,000 more documents related to the war today.

Via PL

Comunicas.- The owner of The Washington Times entered into an agreement Tuesday to sell the newspaper to another entity affiliated with its parent, the Unification Church, which would return funding to the cash-strapped conservative publication, POLITICO has learned.

The agreement was made Tuesday afternoon between News World Communications, the paper’s parent company, chaired by Preston Moon, and News World Media Development, a Delaware-registered LLC tied to other factions of the Unification Church, according to sources close to the negotiations. It sets forth a 30-day period for both sides to conduct due diligence, after which the paper will be sold, if both sides still want to go forward.

“This is a very significant hurdle that has been cleared,” said Sam Dealey, The Washington Times executive editor.

The move follows days of rumors that the paper was on the verge of shutting down. On Monday, local website DCRTV reported that The Washington Times officials were ready to send out a press release announcing the closure as recently as Friday, when a last-minute, revised offer to buy the paper was submitted.

Several sources told POLITICO that last week’s activities represented only an incremental increase over the typical tension at the paper, which has been teetering ever since the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s family cut off most of the annual subsidy that kept the paper going. Moon, Preston’s father and the founder of the Unification Church, founded The Washington Times in 1982.

According to a leaked memo from the Unification Church treasurer, the subsidy that supported The Washington Times stopped “abruptly and completely” in July of 2009. Since 2002, the paper has shrunk from 225 to about 70 people, cut its sports and metro sections, and reduced its circulation. The paper stopped reporting its circulation to the Audit Bureau of Circulation in 2008, and earlier this month, was moved back a row in the White House briefing room.

As news of the possible sale spread through the newsroom Tuesday, it was greeted by a cautious optimism.

“Everyone’s optimistic,” said one person with knowledge of the negotiations. “But the real question is, is the Reverend going to sink a bunch of money into it and run it as a subsidized operation, or are they going to stick to their plan of trying to make money off it, which means they are going to shut it down at some point?”

The paper has been publicly for sale since May, when The Washington Post reported that the paper’s board was in discussions with several potential buyers. The suitors included a group of investors organized by John Solomon, the former Washington Post reporter who resigned as the Washington Times’ executive editor in November. Sources say Solomon is not involved in the current round of negotiations. Solomon declined to comment.

The money troubles stem in part from a dispute over who will succeed the 90-year-old Rev. Moon in the church’s myriad holdings.

Last autumn, the Rev. Moon transferred control of day-to-day operations among some of his sons, including Preston, the eldest, who received The Washington Times, and Sean, the youngest, who was put in charge of the religious mission. The succession plan sparked a feud between Preston and what several sources said was much of the rest of the family.

In November, three longtime executives at the paper — Washington Times publisher Thomas McDevitt, chief financial officer Keith Cooperrider, and chairman Doug Moon Joo — were fired, TPM reported.

Sources said some of these executives may be involved in the new buyers’ group. None could be reached for comment.

Via Politico