Climate Week New York Sept 2009/

America's New Frontline - Diplomats or Warriors? - Part 1

CUBA

The per capita income of Cuba is below USD300.Meaning, theoretically, every Cuban earns barely USD 25/ per month.

Yet Cuba has the best medicare service in the world(every Cuban gets free medical and dental treatment, including for surgery, hospital stay-ins, childbirth, outpatient treatment, pharmaceuticals) and one of the best educational systems in the world(less than 0.3% Cubans are illiterate!) aith free education from nursery school to PHD level.

Vision 2020…not bloody likely!

By Hussein Hamid

Mahathir unveiled the Vision of 2020 plan for Malaysia in 1991. Malaysia was to become an industrialized nation and be considered a high-income economy. Najib refined (that is double speak to mean ‘no can do lah’) that vision: “It is clear that our Vision 2020 objective has to be refined to remain viable,” Najib said.. “Being richer alone does not define a developed nation. There are important social and quality-of-life measurements that must be factored in when considering our objectives and successes.” Malaysia needs to “redefine and recalibrate” how and when it will achieve Vision 2020, Najib told reporters after the speech. That doesn’t necessarily mean a change in the timeline, he said.

I would have agreed with him in principal had he not put in the “that does not necessarily mean a change in the timeline” proviso. I am no economist but let us just use common sense to look at realities.

Let us look at the differences between salaries earned, the cost of a vehicle and a house between 1973 and 2009.

	YEAR		increase
	1973	2 009
1.3 liter Japanese Car	7,000	60,000	8.5
Double Story House	45,000	300,000	6.6
Engineer Salary	1,000	2,000	2

It is the same story when you compare salaries of shop assistants, office staff, factory workers and a whole range of other workers and professional. I have used these 3 items a house, a car and salary earned as a measurement of the country’s performance for the past 35 years to gauge our standard of living. There is little difference in salary between 1973 and 2009 – and yet our purchasing power is vastly different. While the starting income for a newly graduated Engineer between 1973 to 2009 has only doubled – the cost of a car has increase 8.6 times and that of a house 6.6 times.

Fast forward to today.

Ask the kids working at McDonald how much they were being paid per hour? RM3.00 per hour x 8 hours = RM24 per day. Working 25 days a month means they get RM600 per month.

In Australia my daughter works part-time during her University days at Gloria Jeans Coffee. She is paid Aud$14.00 per hour x 8 hours a day =Aud$112 a day x 25 days = Aud$2,800 per month.
(@ RM2.92 per = One Aud Dollar x Aud$2800 = RM8176 per month).

My daughter earns 13.6 times more that the girl at McDonalds in Malaysia.

Our Government lays claim to the fact that Malaysia will be a developed country 2020? A high income country? Let us look further.

2005 Financial Times Figures

GNP per Capita in US Dollars.

USA	US35,400
United Kingdom	US$25,510
Singapore	US$20,690
Australia	US$19,530
Malaysia	US$3,540

The above figures are the 2005 Financial Times figures for GNP per Capita in US Dollars – a measurement of developed country by income measurements.

Malaysia’s GNP per Capita US$3540. Malaysia a developed country by 2020? Not likely. This is a really sad story and a worrying trend is it not?

The Ringgit is sliding further and further under Barisan Nasional. To compound the effect of inflation, the Ringgit has depreciated greatly against ALL major currencies. The real income of most Malaysians has moved backwards. This is why many Malaysians suffer under the petrol hike. The root of the problem is that our real incomes have shrunk in the face of inflation and a depreciated currency. Malaysians have not been spoiled by subsidy but are unable to move out of the time lock of stagnated and depreciated incomes. If you compare the per capita incomes of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea they are a few multiples of ours although at independence all these countries were on the same economic level as Malaysia .

What has gone wrong? Were we not once the rising star of East Asia? A country rich in natural resources with the most promising potential?

What happened?

Massive Corruption for one! Plundering of our precious resources, wastage of funds for huge non-economic projects, anti-public interest deals with politically-linked companies and passing-of-the-buck to the man in the street. I repeat – passing of the buck to the man on the streets!

Four decades of a mismanaged NEP where education, economic and employment policies defined by race without the necessary checks and balances ensured that meritocracy took a back seat.

Our university standard has declined and today our best and brightest youths emigrate to escape the racial inequality and instead now contribute to the economies of foreign lands.

The reputation of our judiciary which was once held in high esteem worldwide has sunk so low that foreign investors now insist on arbitration in Singapore in case of any dispute.

We also have a slew of oppressive laws such as the ISA, OSA, University and University Colleges Act and Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) which all stifle free speech and are designed to keep the ruling parties in power.

We have become less attractive to foreign investors and now lag behind our neighbors in Asean for foreign direct investment. Even some corporations who have established themselves here are moving out. All the economic and social malaise cannot help but affect the value of our currency. The strength of a country’s currency is after all, a reflection of its fundamentals. Furthermore, Bank Negara has a policy of a weak Ringgit to help exporters – never mind the burden on the common folk. The government is pro-corporation, not pro-Rakyat.

While the poor and middle-class are squeezed, an elite group gets breathtakingly rich. We have the distinction of having the worse income disparity in Asean. A re-distribution of wealth is under way from the poor and middle-class to a select group of politically-connected elite. The end result of this re-distribution will be a small group of super-rich while the majority are pushed into poverty and the middle-class shrinks. This is what happens when the rich gets richer and the poor get poorer.

There is much that is wrong with Malaysia. The responsibility for pulling the country backwards can be laid squarely at the door of the ruling regime – Barisan Nasional. It is BN’s mis-governance, racial
politics and culture of patronage and greed which has seen the country regress economically and socially. We seem to be sliding down a slippery slope, further down with each passing year of BN’s rule. Another five years of BN rule and we’ll be at Indonesia ’s standard under Suharto. Another 10 years and we’ll be touching the African standard.. What a way to greet 2020. Is there any hope for Malaysia?

Faced with the reality that BN will never change, many Malaysians desperate for change turn their eyes to Pakatan Rakyat.

Pakatan Rakyat has promised to treat all races fairly, to plug wastage, fight corruption, reform the judiciary and make Malaysia more competitive. But some have questioned whether we can trust Anwar Ibrahim and his loose coalition of disparate parties. The question is not whether we can trust the opposition but whether we can afford not to in view of our state of affairs.

Siputeh: Keputusan SPR Dibidas

US : Health care wars

Perutusan Kemerdekaan 52 Tahun Malaysia oleh Presiden PAS.

31 August 2009

UN official demands torture accountability.

02 July 2009 - Ratner: Navi Pillay, UN human rights advocate says senior officials must be held accountable.

US remains silent over McKinney arrest by Israel.

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 | PressTV

McKinney has served as a Democrat in the US House of Representatives from 1993–2003 and 2005–2007.

Nearly a day after the detention of former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney by Israeli forces, Washington has yet to make a reaction.

Israeli Navy detained former US congresswoman and Nobel Prize laureate Cynthia McKinney and twenty other human rights activists on board a relief boat outside Israel's territorial waters on Tuesday as they were heading to Gaza on a humanitarian mission.

Tel Aviv claims the boat was trying to break Israel's two-year siege on Gaza. Ms McKinney -- the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States-- has accused Tel Aviv of violating the international law by seizing an aid vessel in international waters.

"This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip," McKinney said in a statement. "We are asking the international community to demand our release so we can continue our journey," she added. "My wife and I are very concerned about her safety," Cynthia's father told Press TV in a phone call.

Bill McKinney said that the US government should support Cynthia's message and added, "Her major concern is human." Green Party leaders have called on the White House and the US State Department to intervene and demand the immediate release of all the activists.

On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned of dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, saying 1.5 million Palestinians living in the coastal sliver are 'trapped in despair' because of the continuing Israeli blockade on the territory.

Since June 2007, when Israel imposed a blockade on the territory, no raw material has entered Gaza, stalling any attempt to rebuild the strip. According to the humanitarian agency report, seriously ill patients were not receiving the treatment they needed and thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed during Israel's three-week Christmas war were still without shelter.

Inside Story - Collateral damage?

30 June 2009 - Human rights watch group says Israeli spy drones killed Palestinian civilians during Gaza war.

Russia, Poland and U.S. Strategy - STRATFOR Insights

28 June 2009 - In the latest installment of the STRATFOR Insights video series, CEO George Friedman analyzes the upcoming meeting on July 6 between Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama from a geopolitical perspective.

Likely topics on the agenda include Iran, Afghanistan, U.S. ballistic missile defense installations in Poland and Russia's overall sphere of influence.

Democratic deficit: parliament and democracy.

Posted: 6.19pm Tuesday 26 May 2009 | © Socialist Worker

As the crisis surrounding MPs’ expenses exposes the level of blatant fraud in Britain’s parliamentary system Simon Basketter looks at why capitalist democracy fails us

Britain’s famous parliament building overlooks the Thames, its gothic permanence supposedly representing the timelessness of the “mother of all parliaments”.

But it is a fake, just like the democracy it symbolises. It was built in the mid-19th century as a symbol of the British Empire and capitalism.

The eruption of a political crisis over MPs’ expenses has shone a light on the facade of British democracy, and the murky dealings of those who are supposed to represent us.

Parliament has been an instrument of the ruling class throughout its existence.

New Labour came to power in 1997 saying that it wanted to democratise Britain. Tony Blair promised the 1999 Labour Party conference that he would fight “the forces of conservatism, the cynics, the elites, the establishment”.

Ten years on from Blair’s pledge, the British ruling class is still almost exclusively white, male, over 50 and from a wealthy background.

The House of Lords is more dependant than ever on patronage, and the Commons has been revealed as corrupt.

New Labour has marked a new stage in the centralisation of government.

It is supine in its subservience to corporate power. The growth of privatisation and unelected quangos in the last 12 years have served to reduce democratic control.

Even New Labour’s celebrated Freedom of Information Act was more concerned to conceal than reveal. It was a leak to a newspaper that revealed the MPs’ expenses scandal not the act itself – which they had fought hard to exclude themselves from.

The ruling class’s hold on “democratic institutions” remains. Many MPs and members of the House of Lords have been to public schools, where pupils are taught to rule.

In the 1950s the establishment joked that a sign should hang outside the elite Eton school reading, “Cabinet makers to Her Majesty the Queen.”

Recently we have seen a slight move away from public school and Oxbridge cabinet members. However, a boom in private schools under Labour means we can look forward to a future generation of politicians and bosses who have never been near a comprehensive school.

And if Tory leader David Cameron wins the next general election he will become the 19th, of 52, prime ministers to have attended Eton.

Even the nature of Labour MPs has been altered over the last few years. The party’s rush to embrace free market economics means it has lost many of the links it once had with the working class.

For decades it sent people from working class backgrounds to parliament. While many of them did little for ordinary people, and others did more harm than good, there was an idea that they were there to represent workers.

But now Labour, as Peter Mandelson infamously put it, is “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. Its policies and the people who implement them reflect this.

Very few New Labour MPs come from working class backgrounds, with many coming from the middle class professions.

Labour was founded on the belief that capitalism cannot be replaced with a better system. It believed that there could be improvements and reforms when the system can afford it.

This view affected the party’s trajectory, policies and its representatives.

When capitalism cannot afford any changes, Labour acts for the system rather than the workers it is supposed to represent.

Multinational firms

Capitalism is built on competition. The rush for profits piles pressure on each company to gain an advantage by developing strong relations with the state while cutting out its rivals.

Historically these interests have used the political system to fight for dominance. The state has been used to repress any movement that has challenged our rulers’ power.

When a crisis hits, British institutions have appeared to embrace drastic reforms, while remaining basically unchanged. They are a facade behind which the real rulers can pursue their objectives.

In reality, the handful of people who control the big corporations and financial institutions take all the major decisions about investment and jobs. They have only one interest – profits.

Because this drive impacts on the lives of millions of people, who capitalists try to make work longer and harder to maintain their wealth, it creates conflict.

The state, including parliament, claims to stand above these conflicts and to mediate between different groups in the interests of society as a whole.

But ultimately they always come down on the side of the class that shapes society through its economic decision-making.

Partly this is because the judges, the police chiefs, the military top brass and the secret service chiefs all come from the same background as the people who run the top firms.

They are allowed to share some of the wealth of the system and they all maintain close connections. These people represent the core of the state machine. They will stop at nothing to preserve their power.

Where does parliament fit into this? Parliament does not control these

unelected officials, who often pursue their own anti-democratic agendas and have a big effect on government.

In the past representatives of the ruling class used to go to London to argue among themselves, and with the monarch.

Politicians were the members of the classes they represented. As other classes developed their own interests, they too engaged in politics.

During the 19th century, politics became the sphere of the professional politician rather than the factory or the landowner.

Even the great democratic surge of the 19th and early 20th century was contained by channelling it into the structures of the system.

The state is the instrument by which the wealthy rule. But it is not necessary for its members to be present at all the meetings.

Wealthy individuals and corporations no longer need direct representatives in parliament or government to safeguard their interests. There are still a few rich men in parliament, and some old money persists – such as moat-owning Douglas Hogg.

But most of the time the rich and multinational firms can rely on lobbyists and pressure groups to push their cases for reduced taxation, regulation or increased attacks on the poor.

This process has seen an enthusiastic acceleration under Labour, which has embraced neoliberalism.

In recent years big business has attempted to make the government the direct servant of its immediate needs. We can see this most starkly when companies get into trouble and then demand that the government bails them out.

But it is also there in the background with corporations asserting their control over the state. Thousands of private sector lobbyists swarm around Westminster jostling for access and influence.

History shows us that parties that people elect to shift power away from the minority to the majority invariably end up administering the system that they had hoped to change.

There is another reason why parliamentary institutions do not allow change.

We elect our MPs once every four of five years, with no control over them between elections and with no means of holding them to account.

Workers vote as atomised constituents, allowing them to be influenced by the propaganda of the corporate media and the state. Our power lies in our collective strength in the workplace, where we can resist the diktats of the bosses.

Under capitalism, real power is concentrated beyond our reach – at the heart of the state and the corporations.

After over 100 years of Labour politicians sitting at the ruling class’s administrative trough and failing to change the system in workers’ interests, its time we looked elsewhere to get real democracy.

Lebanon elections - negotiations will start now.

June 08, 2009 - Jeffrey Feltman, acting assistant secretary at the US state department and a former US ambassador to Lebanon, spoke to Al Jazeera's Maryam Nemazee on the parliamentary elections in Lebanon and what they mean both for the nation and the region.

Shell in court over alleged Nigeria crimes.

June 02, 2009 - Royal Dutch Shell is to go on trial in a US court over alleged crimes against humanity and exploitation of the oil-rich Niger Delta more than 10 years ago.

The Dutch oil giant is accused of sponsoring a terror campaign by Nigerian security forces that led to the death of activist and author Ken Saro-Wiwa along with eight others in 1995.

Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports.

Underlying the economic crisis is a human rights time bomb

2008 saw a global economic crisis. Stock markets crashed, banks went under and countries are hovering on the edge of bankruptcy – with governments rallying to find the billions needed for bailouts.

Amnesty International believes they may be missing the point…

“This is not just an economic crisis; it’s fundamentally a human rights crisis. We are sitting on a powder keg of injustice, inequality and insecurity. This is a time bomb of social, political and economic problems.” – Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International

Gerakan’s call on Chin Peng return slammed

Chin Peng & Mat Amin

KUALA LUMPUR, May 22,2009 – Bernama

The Ex-Policemen’s Association of Malaysia (PBPM) has protested against a call for former communist leader Chin Peng to be allowed to return to Malaysia.

PBPM acting president Ku Mohamad Khalid Tuan Ibrahim said the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) had waged a reign of terror against the country during the Emergency where scores of policemen were slain.

The suggestion made by Penang Gerakan chairman Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan is uncalled for, said Ku Mohamad.

Dr Teng Hock Nan has called on the government to re-look at Chin Peng’s case and allow the CPM chairman to return to the country on humanitarian grounds as he was no longer a security threat.

“Many people were also killed. The country was in upheaval during the communist insurgency,” said Ku Mohamad Khalid, adding that Dr Teng should study the implication of his suggestion.

Umno Youth information chief Datuk Reezal Merican said the movement was against any move to make a hero out of a person who had committed crimes on the people and country.

“The crimes inflicted on the people cannot be neutralised merely for sentimental values under whatever circumstances,” he said.

He urged all quarters to refrain from extremist views which could raise the anger of certain groups.

Aung San Suu Kyi

14 May 2009 - Interview: Myanmar journalist Aung Zaw

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is facing the prospect of years in prison after being charged with breaching the conditions of her house arrest.

Al Jazeera spoke to exiled Myanmar journalist Aung Zaw about the reasons for the charges.

US a Republic or Empire?

May 14, 2009 - Bruce Fein: Former Reagan official says Americans must choose between a Republic or an Empire.

Another mega-thief walks free in the US

Marc S. Dreier, center, with Michael Strahan and William Shatner at a party in 2007

Tue, 12 May 2009 - While the US criminal justice system is notoriously punitive and heavy-handed when it comes to crimes of theft and trespass, its collective heart melts when it comes up against a mega-criminal. Witness the ability of self-confessed fraud, thief, and confidence trickster Marc S. Dreier, who pled guilty on Monday in a New York court to selling $400 million worth of fake promissory notes and running an illegal Ponzi scheme, yet managed to walk free from the courthouse.

This echoes another US court's compassion toward Mr. Bernard Madoff, who was allowed bail, despite being charged with the biggest fraud in the history of mankind, near $50 billion, and who, while under 'house arrest' in his mansion apartment in New York, was busy dispensing his private possessions to relatives to avoid being forced to provide even meager restitution to his countless creditors.

Not so lucky was Mr. Jerry Williams, 27, who in 1995 was sentenced to 25 years to life for stealing a slice of pizza. Admittedly, it could have been his third offense, which put him at the wrong end of California's "three strikes" law, but in all likelihood, all that Mr. Williams ever stole in his life would not amount to Harvard Law School graduate Marc Dreier's gasoline costs for his Aston Martin and Mercedes.

Welcome to the US of A.

Why Sedition Act is the new ISA

KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 2009 | malaysianinsider — By Syed Jaymal Zahiid and Melissa Loovi

The recent spate of arrests made under the Sedition Act has led opposition leaders and lawyers to unanimously conclude that the government might have found a better tool than the Internal Security Act (ISA) to quell dissent.

The continued use of the ISA, condemned locally and internationally, does not appear to be politically tenable. This week, a number of activists and opposition party leaders were detained under the Sedition Act.

Many Barisan Nasional (BN) component party leaders have also joined their Pakatan Rakyat (PR) counterparts in calling for the government to abolish the British-inherited law. Umno is the only party that believes that the unpopular law should be maintained.

The Sedition Act is, however, perceived to be less oppressive than the ISA but yet drafted in such a way that it gives the government absolute power to make arrests on its political enemies.

According to section 4 (1) of the Sedition Act, a person is considered to have committed an offence under this law if he or she attempts to do, or make any preparation to do, or conspires with any person to do, any act which has or would, if done, have a seditious tendency.

It further read that any person is found to have committed an offence under this law if he or she utters any seditious words, prints, publishes, sells, offers for sale, distributes, or reproduces any seditious publications or imports any seditious publications.

Yet in all of this, there is no real and clear definitive guideline as to what constitutes sedition.

Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo, who is also a lawyer, said such a vague law lends the authorities indefinite power to silence the opposition.

“A conviction can be so easily secured under the Sedition Act because it is under the discretion of the judge (to conclude what is seditious or not),” he told The Malaysian Insider.

Malik Imtiaz, a prominent human rights lawyer, also said that due to the vague definition, the Sedition Act can be easily used by the BN government on its enemies.

“Where do you draw the line between responsible expression and unethical ones (if the law does not provide such guidelines) so the police are left with the power to draw its own conclusion,” he said.

Centre for Public Policy Studies, or ASLI, chairman Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam told The Malaysian Insider that with the Sedition Act, the government would stand to gain more if it were to make arrests under the Sedition Act instead of the ISA.

"With the Sedition Act, one can stand for an open trial and the government would be seen as conducting a proper exercise of the rule of law.

"But with the ISA, its provision for detention without trial is a violation of one's fundamental rights and a vital aspect of a democracy and the people would perceive this as oppressive," he said.

Navaratnam added that it was wrong for the government to clamp down on opposition leaders and rights activists in recent days as it had encroached their democratic rights to freedom of expression.

Looking back at the history of the Sedition Act, prominent academician Farish A. Noor said it was rather ironic that the British-inherited law is being used against the opposition.

"I think members of the public should remember that the Sedition Act was created by the British colonialists and it was used to silence nationalist opposition who were freedom fighters fighting for the country's independence.

"So it's ironic that the current leaders that came from the same background are actually using the Sedition Act to silence their opposition," he said.