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GS(3) Intel Brief 10-13-06: Updates on Energy Security, Environmental Security, Gangster States, Geopolitics, Human Rights and Corporate Espionage
Edited By Richard Power
Here are highlights from a collection of nine news stories and op-ed pieces, from nine diverse, international news sources: Eurasianet, EU Observer, Asia Times, Reuters, Inter Press Service, Mercosur, New York Times, International Herald Tribune and Information Week. These pieces provide insight on important global issues and trends, including sustainability, energy security, environmental security, gangster states, the struggle for geopolitical hegemony, human rights and corporate espionage.
(NOTE: I continue to monitor developments in regard to the global warming, the genocide in Darfur, the spread of bird flu and the struggle over the disputed results of the Mexican presidential election. I will post updates as Hard Rain Journal entries or GS(3) Thunderbolts as circumstances dictate.)
Here is a summary. Longer excerpts and links follow the summary.
Customized analysis is provided for clients.
Europe, Middle East & Africa
Europe is at risk of power shortages because demand exceeds investment in new power outlets, says consultancy firm Capgemini. According to a study by the consultancy the UK, France, Belgium and Greece are among the countries with the lowest levels of spare capacity of electricity. (EU Observer, 10-2-06)
Africa has long been a dumping ground for all sorts of things the developed world has no use for. “This is the underbelly of globalization,” said Jim Puckett, an activist at the Basel Action Network, an environmental group that fights toxic waste dumping. “Environmental regulations in the north have made disposing of waste expensive, so corporations look south.” (New York Times, 9-28-06)
Asia Pacific
North Korea is a mafia state par excellence. For two generations now a whole nation has been held hostage to the depredations of a ruthless power clique. How have they gotten away with it? Internally, their tools have been propaganda, brainwashing, isolation, terror and starvation. Externally, the story is complicated. …The North Korean mafia thus established its turf and were able to maintain an uneasy stability with the wider world at their margins. (Asia Times, 10-13-06)
Policymakers are suffering from "irrational exuberance" when it comes to Caspian Basin energy issues, a US expert on the region says. The Caspian Basin is now the scene of intense competition among the United States, Russia and China, which are all battling for control over natural resources and export routes. Maureen Crandall, an economics professor at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University, said during a September 20 appearance in Washington that the Caspian Basin’s profit potential is probably exaggerated…. (Eurasianet, 9-22-06)
Americas
Five centuries after the European conquests, Latin America is reasserting its independence.
In the southern cone especially, from Venezuela to Argentina, the region is rising to overthrow the legacy of external domination of the past centuries and the cruel and destructive social forms that they have helped to establish. (Noam Chomsky, International Herald Tribune, 10-3-06)
President Bachelet was held at Villa Grimaldi, a house on the outskirts of the capital Santiago, with her mother in 1975 during Augusto Pinochet's rule….Her father, an air force general, was killed by Gen Pinochet's government for opposing the coup which brought him to power. "I know I will walk where I walked before, where my mother walked, and I also know that the questions I always ask will be stronger than just a whisper," she told a gathering of Chilean historians." (Mercosur
10-11-06)
Global
The United Nations needs to stop the destruction of deep sea ecosystems by banning fishermen from trawling nets on the ocean floor, Australia, New Zealand and Palau, joined by actress Sigourney Weaver, said...About 64 percent of the world's ocean is in international waters, of which about three-quarters is unmanaged, according to the Pew Institute for Ocean Science. (Reuters, 10-4-06)
Rising tides of untreated sewage and plastic debris are seriously threatening marine life and habitat around the globe, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned….(Inter Press Service, 10-6-0)
Cyberspace
With Hewlett-Packard insiders and contractors facing fraud and conspiracy charges, a spotlight is being shone on the shady world of corporate intelligence….Security and intelligence experts say the temptation can be great for executives to authorize the use of Web bugs, miniscule eavesdropping devices, and other newfangled technologies. They give companies a sense of distance and anonymity. Using tracking software seems less cloak-and-dagger than breaking into someone's office and tearing through desk drawers…. (Information Week, 10-9-06)
Europe, Middle East & Africa
Europe is at risk of power shortages because demand exceeds investment in new power outlets, says consultancy firm Capgemini. According to a study by the consultancy the UK, France, Belgium and Greece are among the countries with the lowest levels of spare capacity of electricity. Colette Lewiner of Capgemini said the study represents a "wake-up call" for the energy industry, governments and regulators. "We are in a dangerous zone now," she said, according to the Financial Times. "We could have power cuts." European energy companies used to have high levels of excess capacity but in the last few years, investment in generators in most EU member states has failed to keep pace with the rise in demand of electricity, according to the study. Capgemini said lower electricity capacity was partly due to the European energy market becoming more competitive and commercial. Electricity generators across Europe have become more exposed to commercial pressures by the spread of liberalisation and private ownership, the consultancy said. Helena Spongenberg, EU at risk of electricity blackouts, EU Observer, 10-2-06
How that slick, a highly toxic cocktail of petrochemical waste and caustic soda, ended up in Mr. Oudrawogol’s backyard in a suburb north of Abidjan is a dark tale of globalization. It came from a Greek-owned tanker flying a Panamanian flag and leased by the London branch of a Swiss trading corporation whose fiscal headquarters are in the Netherlands. Safe disposal in Europe would have cost about $300,000, or perhaps twice that, counting the cost of delays. But because of decisions and actions made not only here but also in Europe, it was dumped on the doorstep of some of the world’s poorest people. So far eight people have died, dozens have been hospitalized and 85,000 have sought medical attention, paralyzing the fragile health care system in a country divided and impoverished by civil war, and the crisis has forced a government shakeup…. The spreading illnesses sparked violent demonstrations from a population convinced that government corruption was to blame for the dumping, and ultimately the furor forced the prime minister and his government to resign in September, though much of the government was reinstated later.…Africa has long been a dumping ground for all sorts of things the developed world has no use for. “This is the underbelly of globalization,” said Jim Puckett, an activist at the Basel Action Network, an environmental group that fights toxic waste dumping. “Environmental regulations in the north have made disposing of waste expensive, so corporations look south.” LYDIA POLGREEN and MARLISE SIMONS, Global Sludge Ends in Tragedy for Ivory Coast, New York Times, 9-28-06
Asia Pacific
North Korea is a mafia state par excellence. For two generations now a whole nation has been held hostage to the depredations of a ruthless power clique. How have they gotten away with it? Internally, their tools have been propaganda, brainwashing, isolation, terror and starvation. Externally, the story is complicated. …The North Korean mafia thus established its turf and were able to maintain an uneasy stability with the wider world at their margins. There were provocations and skirmishes, but they have survived for 60 years. The reasons for this warped success have been pretty elemental. They have not been a serious threat to anyone, except perhaps the South Koreans….The North Koreans have always held just one major ace: it is a city called Seoul, and it is within direct range of massive North Korean artillery. The greater Seoul metropolitan area contains about 22 million people. The Pyongyang command cabal has demonstrated repeatedly and deliberately that it has no compassion for its compatriots in the North, let alone the South. Any attack on their lair could therefore easily involve millions of deaths in Seoul. Such a sacrifice is of course unconscionable to South Koreans, but even the nabobs in Washington, Tokyo and Beijing, who aren't bleeding-heart types, won't play that card without serious provocation….On paper, North Korea is China's ally and a buffer state against the unwelcome presence of US military and economic power on the Korean Peninsula. It has also looked like a handy lever against Japanese pressure. The reality of the relationship has been less wholesome than that for Beijing. Like the Soviets before them, they have found the North Koreans eager to grasp goodies, but reluctant to reciprocate. Worse, the decrepit public fundamentalism and private gangster mentality of the North Korean elite has been an insuperable barrier to real economic development. This in turn has much hampered the economic potential of China's industrial northeast provinces. An economic powerhouse like South Korea adjacent to these Chinese provinces would create great synergy and mitigate the simmering political revolt which now characterizes this rust belt… Thor May, North Korea - pick your godfather, Asia Times, 10-13-06
Policymakers are suffering from "irrational exuberance" when it comes to Caspian Basin energy issues, a US expert on the region says. The Caspian Basin is now the scene of intense competition among the United States, Russia and China, which are all battling for control over natural resources and export routes. Maureen Crandall, an economics professor at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University, said during a September 20 appearance in Washington that the Caspian Basin’s profit potential is probably exaggerated….Her presentation was followed by a rebuttal by S. Frederick Starr, the chair of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute….He lauded Washington for always providing strong backing for construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. The so-called "deal of the century" that created the BTC option was signed in 1994 during the Clinton administration…. "This is transforming the region [the Caspian Basin] … their prospects have been transformed by the BTC pipeline already, and it’s just begun," Starr said….Starr did not mention that corruption, fueled in large part by the oil-and-gas sector, remains a significant problem in the region -- something that could seriously undermine stability if left unchecked. According to the watchdog group Transparency International, Azerbaijan stands alongside Uzbekistan as among the most corrupt governments in the world.,,, Joshua Kucera, Those Playing Caspian Basin Energy Game May Suffer from "Irrational Exuberance" – Expert, Eurasianet, 9-22-06
Americas
Five centuries after the European conquests, Latin America is reasserting its independence.
In the southern cone especially, from Venezuela to Argentina, the region is rising to overthrow the legacy of external domination of the past centuries and the cruel and destructive social forms that they have helped to establish.
The mechanisms of imperial control - violence and economic warfare, hardly a distant memory in Latin America - are losing their effectiveness, a sign of the shift toward independence. Washington is now compelled to tolerate governments that in the past would have drawn intervention or reprisal.
Throughout the region a vibrant array of popular movements provide the basis for a meaningful democracy. The indigenous populations, as if in a rediscovery of their pre-Columbian legacy, are much more active and influential, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador.
These developments are in part the result of a phenomenon that has been observed for some years in Latin America: As the elected governments become more formally democratic, citizens express an increasing disillusionment with democratic institutions. They have sought to construct democratic systems based on popular participation rather than elite and foreign domination….Of course this shift is highly unwelcome in Washington, for the traditional reasons: The United States expects to rely on Latin America as a secure base for resources, markets and investment opportunities.
And as planners have long emphasized, if this hemisphere is out of control, how can the United States hope to resist defiance elsewhere? Noam Chomsky, Latin America Declares Independence, International Herald Tribune, 10-3-06
President Bachelet was held at Villa Grimaldi, a house on the outskirts of the capital Santiago, with her mother in 1975 during Augusto Pinochet's rule. Villa Grimaldi is now a memorial to the hundreds of prisoners who were tortured by the Chilean secret police there. Under General Pinochet's government about 3,000 people were "disappeared" or killed for alleged communist links. The former leader is currently facing a series of human rights charges related to his time in office. Her father, an air force general, was killed by Gen Pinochet's government for opposing the coup which brought him to power. "I know I will walk where I walked before, where my mother walked, and I also know that the questions I always ask will be stronger than just a whisper," she told a gathering of Chilean historians. "How could that happen? Was there something we could have done to avoid it? Are we now finally a society built on mutual respect?" Bachelet to visit torture camp, Mercosur, 10-11-06
Global
The United Nations needs to stop the destruction of deep sea ecosystems by banning fishermen from trawling nets on the ocean floor, Australia, New Zealand and Palau, joined by actress Sigourney Weaver, said...About 64 percent of the world's ocean is in international waters, of which about three-quarters is unmanaged, according to the Pew Institute for Ocean Science. "The world's oceans are facing a crisis," Weaver told a news conference, adding that deep sea bottom trawling was "raping these oceans beyond site and beyond regulation."…"The global picture in relation to conservation of the marine environment is a dismal one," Australia's Ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Hill, said….A Greenpeace report in March said that 40 percent of the world's oceans should be placed in nature reserves. Just 0.6 percent of oceans are protected reserves at present, compared with 12 percent of the world's land, according to U.N. data. Michelle Nichols, UN to Consider Deep Sea Trawling Ban, Reuters, 10-4-06
Rising tides of untreated sewage and plastic debris are seriously threatening marine life and habitat around the globe, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned in a report Wednesday. The number of ocean "dead zones" has grown from 150 in 2004 to about 200 today, said Nick Nuttall, a UNEP spokesperson.
"These are becoming more common in developing countries," Nuttall told IPS from Nairobi, Kenya.
Dead zones can encompass areas of ocean 100,000 square kms in size where little can live because there is no oxygen left in the water. Nitrogen pollution, mainly from farm fertilisers and sewage, produces blooms of algae that absorb all of the oxygen in the water.
Growing global populations, mainly concentrated along coastlines, and the resulting increase in untreated sewage are endangering human health and wildlife, as well as livelihoods from fisheries to tourism, according to the "State of the Marine Environment" report.
"An estimated 80 percent of marine pollution originates from the land," said Achim Steiner, United Nations undersecretary-general and UNEP's executive director.
"And this could rise significantly by 2050 if, as expected, coastal populations double in just over 40 years time and action to combat pollution is not accelerated," Steiner said in a statement.
The report is compiled from a wide variety of government, academic and other sources by UNEP's Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-Based Sources.
In many developing countries, between 80 percent and nearly 90 percent of sewage entering the coastal zones is estimated to be raw and untreated…Some cities in the developed world also dump their sewage directly into waterways.
More than one half of wastewater entering the Mediterranean Sea is untreated, as is 60 percent of the wastewater discharged into the Caspian Sea, the UNEP report found.
Unlike the United States and countries in the European Union, Canada has no national standards for sewage treatment for cities. Stephen Leahy, Marine Scientists Report Massive "Dead Zones", Inter Press Service, 10-6-06
Cyberspace
With Hewlett-Packard insiders and contractors facing fraud and conspiracy charges, a spotlight is being shone on the shady world of corporate intelligence.
A month after HP principals admitted to conducting a boardroom leak investigation that involved spying, accessing phone and fax records using false pretenses, and running a sting operation on a reporter, former HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn and four others were charged last week with fraud and conspiracy….All five face charges for allegedly engaging in fraudulent wire communications, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit those three crimes….A federal investigation of HP's practices continues out of the U.S. Attorney's Office, as do probes by the FBI, FCC, Federal Trade Commission, and Securities and Exchange Commission.
Security and intelligence experts say the temptation can be great for executives to authorize the use of Web bugs, miniscule eavesdropping devices, and other newfangled technologies. They give companies a sense of distance and anonymity. Using tracking software seems less cloak-and-dagger than breaking into someone's office and tearing through desk drawers…. Sharon Gaudin and K.C. Jones, Corporate Probes Under Scrutiny, Information Week, 10-9-06
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Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net
North Korea, Oceans, Sustainability, United Nations, China, Central Asia, Environmental Security, Africa, Europe, Geopolitics, Kazakhstan, Energy Security, Uzbekistan, Corruption, Ivory Coast, Grenpeace, Chile, Michelle Bachelet
