Crisis in Darfur Update 11-29-07: Dream for Darfur Flunks Visa, Microsoft, Coca Cola and Others; The Reputation of the Olympics is At Risk

For Powerful Images from Sudan and Eastern Chad, go to Mia Farrow's November 2006 Photo Essay

Crisis in Darfur Update 11-29-07: Dream for Darfur Flunks Visa, Microsoft, Coca Cola and Others; The Reputation of the Olympics is At Risk

By Richard Power

This life is a oneness.

Spiritually, the blood of every human flows in the veins of every other human, the heart of every human beats in the breast of every other human. The breath that you inhale one moment is exhaled by a stranger on the other side of the world the next moment.

And yet, the slow-motion genocide in Darfur has gone on for years, largely uninterrupted by either the governments of the world or the global business community. This numbness and blindness are symptomatic of a serious spiritual illness in our own societies.

Visa, Coca Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Microsoft, Volkswagen and others intend to proudly unfurl their banners at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; and by doing so, they will being participating, lucratively and prominently, in the Chinese government's effort to project a happy face to the world.

But behind that happy face is a grim hybrid of totalitarian politics and naked capitalism both domestically and internationally.

No government in the world has as much influence on the thugocracy in Karthoum; and up to this point, they have looked the other way in regard to the genocide in Darfur.

According to a report card issued by Dream for Darfur, nineteen top Olympic sponsors, including Visa, Coca Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Microsoft, Volkswagen and others, received grades of either "F" or "D" for their inadequate "corporate social responsibility responses" on the issue of Darfur and its implications for the 2008 Olympics.

As Dream for Darfur declares, Visa, Coca Cola and the others have a "special obligation" to "live up to their own statements of 'social responsibility' and their duty as Olympic sponsors," i.e., they must take action on Darfur before the Games begin next August.

Until they do, in a real and meaningful way, the small plastic card (Visa) that you swipe at the store, the car you drove there in (Volkswagen) the six packs of soda (Coke) and beer (Budweiser) that you purchase with it, the software (Microsoft) that you use while you sit at your computer sipping from those cans, are all tainted with genocide.

Here are some excerpts from Dream to Darfur's statement, along with a link to the full report.

Dream for Darfur is using the 2008 Olympic Games as leverage to press China, Sudan's strongest business and political partner, to take urgent action to end the Darfur crisis. The slaughter and insecurity in Darfur have been on the rise, with more than 200,000 deaths, and 2.5 million people displaced since 2003. Despite hopes for progress this summer, there has been no viable movement toward peace. Experts agree that China has unrivaled leverage with Khartoum and could exert influence to allow an international force of peacekeepers into Darfur.

"Sponsors are supporting China's efforts to position itself in glowing terms on the world stage. But they are silent about China's role in the Darfur genocide, and in their silence, they are complicit," said Jill Savitt, Executive Director of Dream for Darfur.

Over the course of 16 weeks (May to October 2007), Dream for Darfur asked 19 Olympic sponsors (all 12 Worldwide Olympic Partners and seven Western-based sponsors and suppliers) to undertake specific steps to communicate to China the problematic nature of its role in Darfur. The group then graded each company on its response to the Darfur crisis in the report card released today.

Corporate sponsors must demand China use special role on Darfur to
save reputation of 2008 Games.

To view Dream for Darfur's report, "And Now ... Not a Word from Our Sponsors," click here.

For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.

If you want to help save Darfur, here are sites that will show you how:

Mia Farrow

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

Darfur, Africa, Coca Cola, Genocide, Mia Farrow, Microsoft, Visa, Dream for Darfur, Sudan, Investors Against Genocide, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Sinead O'Connor -- Troy (Pink Pop Festival, Netherlands, 1988)

Hard Rain Late Night: Sinead O'Connor -- Troy (Pink Pop Festival, Netherlands, 1988)



Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

Sinead O'Connor, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Climate Crisis Update 11-28-07: Oxfam Report Highlights Increase in Disasters as Climate Change Accelerates

Oxfam Briefing Paper: Climate Alarm -- Disaster Increases As Climate Change Bites


Climate Crisis Update 11-28-07: Oxfam Report Highlights Increase in Disasters as Climate Change Accelerates

By Richard Power

The Oxfam report is spot-on, and reaffirms my analysis since 2000, both in its findings and its recommendations.

Here is the report's summary, followed by a link to the full text:

Climatic disasters are on the increase as the Earth warms up – in line with scientific observations and computer simulations that model future climate. 2007 has been a year of climatic crises, especially floods, often of an unprecedented nature. They included Africa’s worst floods in three decades, unprecedented flooding in Mexico, massive floods in South Asia and heat waves and forest fires in Europe, Australia, and California. By mid November the United Nations had launched 15 ’flash appeals’, the greatest ever number in one year. All but one were in response to climatic disasters.

At the same time as climate hazards are growing in number, more people are being affected by them because of poverty, powerlessness, population growth, and the movement and displacement of people to marginal areas. The total number of natural disasters has quadrupled in the last two decades – most of them floods, cyclones, and storms. Over the same period the number of people affected by disasters has increased from around 174 million to an average of over 250 million a year. Small- and medium-scale disasters are occurring more frequently than the kind of large-scale disasters that hit the headlines.

However, dramatic weather events do not in themselves necessarily constitute disasters; that depends on the level of human vulnerability – the capacity to resist impacts. Poor people and countries are far more vulnerable because of their poverty. Disasters, in turn, undermine development that can provide greater resilience.

One shock after another, even if each is fairly small, can push poor people and communities into a downward spiral of destitution and further vulnerability from which they struggle to recover. Such shocks can be weather-related, due to economic downturns, or occur because of conflict or the spread of diseases like HIV and AIDS. Such shocks hit women hardest; they are the main collectors of water and depend most directly on access to natural resources to feed their families; they have fewer assets than men to fall back on, and often less power to demand their rights to protection and assistance.

Now, accelerating climate change is bringing more floods, droughts, extreme weather and unpredictable seasons. Climate change has the potential to massively increase global poverty and inequality, punishing first, and most, the very people least responsible for greenhouse-gas emissions – and increasing their vulnerability to disaster.

There is hope. The global humanitarian system has been getting better at reducing death rates from public-health crises following on from major shocks like floods or droughts. But humanitarian response is still skewed, for example to high-profile disasters, and it will certainly be woefully inadequate as global temperatures continue to rise, unless action is taken quickly.

New approaches to humanitarian action are needed as well as new money. Political efforts aimed at reducing poverty and inequality, which provide people with essential services like health and education, and offer social protection (a regular basic income, or insurance), constitute a firm foundation for effective disaster risk reduction (DRR), preparedness, and response. More work needs to be done to understand the linkages between development, DRR and climate change adaptation, and therefore to more accurately assess the financial costs climate change will impose.

Fundamentally, the world has an immediate responsibility to stem the increase in climate-related hazards. Above all, that means tackling climate change by drastically reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Oxfam’s recommendations are:

Mitigate: Greenhouse-gas emissions must be reduced drastically to keep global average temperature rise as far below two degrees Celsius as possible. Rich countries must act first and fastest. The next UN climate-change conference in Bali in December is a vital opportunity.

Adapt: Oxfam has estimated that, in addition to funding for emergency response, developing countries will require at least US$50bn annually to adapt to unavoidable climate change. These funds should be provided by rich nations in line with their responsibility for causing climate change and their capacity to assist. Additional finance for adaptation is not aid, but a form of compensatory finance; it must not come out of long-standing donor commitments to provide 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product as aid in order to eradicate poverty. At present, funding for adaptation is totally inadequate, and the forthcoming UN climate conference in Bali in December must mandate the search for new funds. Innovative financing mechanisms need to be explored.

Improve the global humanitarian system:

Increase emergency aid: Major donor governments must keep their promises to increase Overseas Development Aid by an additional US$50bn a year by 2010. If they do, then humanitarian aid is likely to increase in proportion from over US$8bn to over US$11bn. But aid is going in the wrong direction, and anyway this is unlikely to be enough; increased warming and climate change pose the very real danger that humanitarian response will be overwhelmed in the coming decades. More money and better responses are both needed.

Ensure fast, fair, flexible, appropriate aid: This should include moving away from over-reliance on in-kind food aid, towards more flexible solutions such as cash transfers.

Reduce vulnerability and the risk of disaster:

Build long-term social protection: Climate change is accentuating the fact that for many poor people, shocks are the norm. Governments must put poor people first. Aid should be used to build and protect the livelihoods and assets of poor people. Providing essential services like water, sanitation, health and education, and long-term social protection systems form the foundations for timely emergency scale-up when required.

Invest in disaster risk reduction (DRR): Governments have made commitments to make the world safer from natural hazards through investing in DRR approaches. They need to put their promises into action and link DRR to both climate-change adaptation measures and to national poverty reduction strategies.

Build local capacity: Build the capacity of local actors, particularly government at all levels, and empower affected populations so they have a strong role and voice in preparedness, response and subsequent recovery and rehabilitation.

Do development right: Development aid should integrate analyses of disaster risk and climate trends. Inappropriate development strategies not only waste scant resources, they also end up putting more people at risk, for instance by the current reckless rush to produce biofuels without adequate safeguards for poor people and important environments.

To download the full report, click here.

To help Oxfam in its vital mission, click here.

For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.

Click here for access to great promotional tools available on The Eleventh Hour action page.

To sign the Live Earth Pledge, click here.

Want to wake people up to the US mainstream news media's complicity in misinforming the public on global warming and climate change? Click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".

Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"

Want to join hundreds of thousands of people on the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions now? Click here.

Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio has released a witty and compelling compilation on the Top 100 Effects of Global Warming, organized into sections like "Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun" (e.g., "Goodbye to Pinot Noir," "Goodbye to Baseball," "Goodbye to Salmon Dinners," "Goodbye to Ski Vacations," etc.), "Global Warming Kills the Animals" (e.g., "Death March of the Penguins," "Dying Grey Whales," "Farwell to Frogs," etc.) and yes, "Global Warming Threatens Our National Security" (e.g., "Famine," "Drought," "Large-Scale Migrations," "The World's Checkbook," etc.) I urge you to utilize Top 100 Effects of Global Warming in your dialogues with friends, family and colleagues.

And don't forget to tune into Eco-Talk Radio on the air waves and/or in cyberspace.

Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Weather, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth,Laurie David, Stop Global Warming!,Greenpeace, IPCCC, The Eleventh Hour, Al Gore, Oxfam, Disasters, Richard Power, Words of Power

Human Rights Update: Ending Violence Against Women is a Global Imperative; UNIFEM Launches Campaign

Nicole Kidman, UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador

UNIFEM, its Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman, and a large number of partners launched an Internet campaign on ending violence against women today. Titled, "Say NO to Violence against Women," the campaign invites people to add their names to a "virtual" book on a web site that has been developed specifically for this purpose: http://www.saynotoviolence.org/. Urging hundreds of thousands -- even millions -- of people around the world to participate, the campaign aims to send a strong message to decision-makers to place ending violence against women high on the global agenda. ... "Violence against women is an appalling human rights violation," said [Kidman]. "But it is not inevitable. We can put a stop to this. The more names we collect, the stronger our case to make ending violence against women a top priority for governments everywhere. This is why I was the first to sign my name." UNIFEM, 11-26-07

Human Rights Update: Ending Violence Against Women is a Global Imperative; UNIFEM Launches Campaign

By Richard Power

In follow-up to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, UNIFEM has launched a Say No to Violence Against Women campaign.

UNIFEM goodwill ambassador Nicole Kidman is the campaign's spokesperson.

Click here to participate.

Violence against women goes on every day, in every country.

There is random, personal violence, there is also violence that is systematized and sanctioned by government and/or religion. (The tolerance of violence against women is no less an abomination than the act itself, but the fabricating of a religious rationale for it is, arguably, an even more heinous act.)

Here are important stories from the Congo, Iraq, Saudia Arabia and France.

According to humanitarian workers such as Christine Schuler Deschryver, the plight of women in the Congo is worse than that of women in Darfur, i.e., the numbers are greater, it is more widespread and it has been going on a longer time.

Along the eastern border region, a daily horror show is playing itself out, bolstered by the ambivalence of the world and the political vacuum created by decades of regional conflict.
The perpetrators include the Interahamwe, the Hutu fighters who fled neighbouring Rwanda in 1994 after committing genocide there; the Congolese army; a random assortment of armed civilians; even United Nations peacekeepers, and increasingly, local civilians
Christine Schuler Deschryver, who works for a German aid organisation and has been a staunch and stubborn advocate for victims, says the perpetrators are difficult to identify. “All of them are raping women,” she says, “It is a country sport. Any person in uniform is an enemy to women.”
The problems have their roots in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when thousands of victims and perpetrators fled across the border. Upwards of 10,000 Rwandan rebel forces remained, living in forested areas and terrorising local populations at their will. ... The attacks grow more numerous and sadistic by the day and the normalisation of sexual violence continues largely unabated. Sydney Morning Herald, 111-24-07

(But, of course, since the problem developed as a result of an influx of armed men in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, the situation in the Congo actually underscores the need for preventing the worst in Darfur).

Despite the US political establishment's self-serving and delusional talk about "progress" and "victory" in Iraq, the reality is a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions, second only to Darfur; and women and young girls, as usual, are singled out to suffer special misery.

Erika Feller, an assistant high commissioner for protection at the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said attention must be paid to the plight of women refugees in countries neighboring Iraq, particularly Syria.
Feller, who recently visited Syria, singled out the resurgence of problems such as "weekend marriages," a euphemism for prostitution.
Families make available young girls for "a traditional marriage ceremony" for the weekend to men who are prepared to pay and "the divorce takes place on Sunday in accordance to traditional practices," she explained.
"So it's not formally speaking labelled as prostitution but it is basically survival sex," she told reporters, noting that those women, particularly single women heading households, had often no other choice to feed their children. Iraqi refugees have also taken refuge in Lebanon, Egypt and Iran. Agence France Press, 11-13-07

Police found the body of Suad Kokaz, head of the Amil High School for Girls, outside her home in the relatively safe Shiite area of Kadhimiyah. She was ambushed by gunmen after leaving her home for work, according to police.
Amil High School has become a haven for Shiite Muslim students fleeing with their families from the religious segregation that has pulled apart many of Baghdad's neighborhoods since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. ...
The murder is the second in as many weeks of a Baghdad schoolteacher. Last week authorities found the body of a woman teacher not far from her school in the Al-Saydiyah area in southeast Baghdad. ...
Police in the southern city of Basra report a sharp increase in attacks on women, with more than 40 killed between July and September ... dozens of women are threatened and intimidated each month, mostly by self-styled enforcers of religious law who target females who wear Western clothes or appear in public without head scarves. ABC News, 11-15-07

No discussion of violence against women would be credible without including the Saudi kingdom, the spiritual center of both Islam as a whole, and the extremist Wahhabi sect, which spawned Osama bin Laden, in particular.

A Saudi court on Tuesday more than doubled the number of lashes that a female rape victim was sentenced to last year after her lawyer appealed the original sentence. The decision, which many lawyers found shocking even by Saudi standards of justice, has provoked a rare public debate about the treatment of women here. ... The victim’s name has not been released. She was raped about 18 months ago in Qatif, a city in the Eastern Province, and has become known in the Saudi media as “the Qatif girl.” She was 19 years old at the time of the assault.
Her case has been widely debated since the court sentenced her to 90 lashes a year ago for being in the same car as an unrelated man, even after it ruled that she had subsequently been raped. For a woman to be in seclusion with a man who is not her husband or a relative is a crime in Saudi Arabia, whose legal code is based on a strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law. New York Times, 11-16-07

But there is no need to focus on Africa or the Middle East, or on the violence that flourishes in the midst of humanitarian crisis, or is systemized as a tool of war, or santioned by religion.

There is ample evidence of this sickness, and an unacceptable level of tolerance for it, in the culture of the West.

Image: Marie Trintignant, Actress, Murdered By Her Husband, Bertrand Cantat, A Rock Star, Who Served Only Four Years in Prison (Half of an Eight Year Sentence) for the Crime

FRANCE'S most popular rock star, Bertrand Cantat, will walk free from jail today after serving half of an eight-year sentence for battering to death his actress girlfriend, Marie Trintignant, in a jealous rage four years ago. ... He was convicted of killing Trintignant after battering her in a hotel room in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, where the actress had been starring in a film.
At his trial in Vilnius, the court heard that Cantat had punched his lover 19 times in the face, causing irreparable brain damage, after he flew into a jealous rage over an affectionate text message from her ex-husband.
When the 41-year-old mother of four fell into a coma from which she never emerged, he did not call an ambulance, but telephoned friends instead. ... Far from dimming the group's popularity, Cantat's conviction sent record sales soaring. A live album released in 2005 sold over 300,000 copies in France. The Scotsman, 10-15-07

If you haven't already done so, please Click here to participate in UNIFEM's campaign to end violence against women.

Some Related Posts

In This Century of Crisis, Empowering Women is Vital if the Human Race is to Prevail, i.e., Evolve

Global Campaign Against Poverty 10-17-07: Stand Up & Speak Out -- Raise Women Up, Defend Them Against Violence & Oppression, Put Them in Power

Human Rights Update 9-6-07: In the 21st Century, Sane Men are Feminists -- UNIFEM Works to Dismantle the Edifice of Dysfunction

Hard Rain Journal 2-17-07: UN Millennium Goals and Human Rights Update -- Healing Balm for the World? Feed Children, Empower Women

To download the full text of UNIFEM Annual Report (2006-2007) in English, Spanish or French, click here.

For a directory of Words of Power Human Rights Updates, click here.

UN, Congo, Bertrand Cantat, Marie Trintignant, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UNFEM, Human Rights, Feminism, Nicole Kidman, Violence Against Women

Hard Rain Late Night: John McLaughlin & Shakti -- le danse du bonheur

Hard Rain Late Night -- John McLaughlin and Shakti -- le danse du bonheur



Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

John+Mclaughlin,You Tube, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Journal 11-24-07: Bittersweet Victory in Australia as Tragic Defeat Looms in Afghanistan, A Message for the Democratic Party

The Last Wave, Peter Weir, 1977

Hard Rain Journal 11-24-07: Bittersweet Victory in Australia as Defeat & Humanitarian Crisis Deepen in Afghanistan, A Message for the Democratic Party

By Richard Power

in the weeks after 9/11, I happened to be in Perth to give a security briefing to corporate executives and government officials on the same day that the Australians shipped off for Afghanistan.

John Howard and I stayed at the same hotel.

It was a sad, poignant but purposeful atmosphere. They were going to Afghanistan, for better and worse, to take out Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But then the Bush-Cheney regime misled the USA into its foolish military adventure in Iraq, and John Howard misled Australia into tagging along. (That opened the gates of hell, as Tony Zinni had warned it would.)

Finally, the Australians have rid themselves of that silly little man:

Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq.
Labor Party head Kevin Rudd's pledges on global warming and Iraq move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President Bush's staunchest allies.
Rudd has named global warming as his top priority, and his signing of the Kyoto Protocol will leave the U.S. as the only industrialized country not to have joined it. Rohan Sullivan, Associated Press, 11-24-07

It is bitterly ironic that Howard's "humiliating defeat" should share the headlines with reports of a dire turn for the worse in Afghanistan:

More than half of Afghanistan is back under Taliban control and the Nato force in the country needs to be doubled in size to cope with the resurgent group, a report by the Senlis Council think-tank says. A study by the group found that the Taliban, enriched by illicit profits from the country's record poppy harvest, had formed de-facto governments in swathes of the southern Pashtun belt. ...
Yesterday's Senlis dossier coincided with an Oxfam report saying that Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian crisis in which millions face "severe hardship comparable with sub-Saharan Africa". It highlights the fact that US spending on aid in the country, $4.4bn since 2002, was only a fraction of its military expenditure of $35bn in 2007 alone. ...
Meanwhile, Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said civilian casualties caused by military action has reached "alarming levels" this year. "These not only breach international law but are eroding support among the Afghan community for the government and international military presence, as well as public support in contributing states for continued engagement in Afghanistan," she said.
The Senlis report, while accepting that "collateral damage"' has led to alienation among the population, maintains that the Nato force needs to be doubled in size, from 40,000 to 80,000, and some contributing nations should remove caveats which prevent their troops from taking part in frontline duties. It also urged Nato to invite Muslim countries to contribute to the Afghan force. Kim Sengupta, Independent, 11-22-07

Hopefully, in 2008, the USA will throw off its tragic dalliance with the neo-cons; and there could be not better, simpler, more direct message to run against them on than Rudd's -- i.e., "to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq."

But will the Democratic Party choose a candidate with that kind of courage?

For an archive of Words of Power posts on 9/11, Terrorism, etc., click here.

John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Australia, Afghanistan, Bush, Cheney, Iraq, Global Warming, Senlis Council, Richard Power, Words of Power


There is Treason in High Places -- Joe Wilson & Valerie Plame Ask, Where is the "Contempt & Anger"?

Image: Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, PBS Now

In early fall 2003, George W. Bush joined in what appears to have been a criminal cover-up to conceal the role of his White House in exposing the classified identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. That is the logical conclusion one would draw from a new statement by then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan when it is put into a mosaic with previously known evidence. ... In October 2005, Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts of lying to federal investigators and obstructing an investigation. Libby was convicted on four of five counts in March 2007 and sentenced to 30 months in jail, but Bush commuted Libby's sentence to spare him any jail time. That also eliminated any incentive for Libby to turn state's evidence against Bush and Cheney. Now, however, McClellan has become the first White House insider to acknowledge the original lies that senior administration told about the Plame-gate affair - and to put the President in the middle of the cover-up.
The next question might reasonably be: what are the Democrats in Congress going to do about it? Robert Parry, Consortium News viat Truthout, 11-21-07

There is Treason in High Places -- Joe Wilson & Valerie Plame Ask, Where is the "Contempt & Anger"?

By Richard Power

There is treason in high places. And no, the term is not used in a cavalier way.

To support the Wilsons in their legal fight, click here.

To purchase Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House from Buzzflash, click here.

Here are some excerpts from the Wilsons' latest statement, with a link to the full text at the Huffington Post:

"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors." -- George Herbert Walker Bush, CIA dedication ceremony, April 26, 1999.

When Bush administration officials I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage and Ari Fleischer betrayed Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA operations officer, they fell into the category of "the most insidious of traitors." Now we learn from the president's former press secretary, Scott McClellan, that the president himself "was involved" in sending him out to lie to the American public about the betrayal. ...

With the exception of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and the intrepid David Shuster, the mainstream media would have you believe that McClellan's revelation is old news. ...

So far there is no apparent desire for redemption driving the press to report on the treachery of senior officials. Instead, the mainstream press has compounded its complicity by giving the Bush administration yet another free pass and shifting blame. The New York Times failed to publish an article on McClellan's revelation and The Washington Post buried it at the end of a column deep on page A-15 in the newspaper. Earlier in the week, Newsweek magazine, owned by the Washington Post Company, proudly announced the identity of its new star columnist -- Karl Rove, one of the key actors in this collective treason. Robert Novak, who willfully disclosed Valerie's identity, having been twice warned not to do so by the CIA, and who transmitted his column to Rove before it was published, remains a regularly featured columnist in The Washington Post. ...

Presidents and those who aspired to be president in the past once took strong positions in defense of U.S. national security. Today, Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson has tried to build his support through fronting for the Scooter Libby Defense fundraising efforts. Meanwhile, other Republican candidates accuse Patrick Fitzgerald of being "a runaway prosecutor" and remain silent about the stain on Bush's presidency.

Where is the outrage? Where is the "contempt and anger?" Joe Wilson & Valierie Plame, Treason is Not Old News, Huffington Post, 11-22-07

Some Related Post

Hard Rain Journal: Friedman, McClellan & The Definition of Depravity

Hard Rain Journal 11-8-07: Who Will Rescue The Goddess of Liberty from Her Abusers & Their Enablers in the US Congress?

Larry Johnson, Valerie Plame & 22 Others Sign Letter from Intelligence, Military, Diplomatic, & Law Enforcement Professionals

Hard Rain Journal 7-3-07: Joe Wilson -- "The commutation of (Libby's) sentence in and of itself is participation in obstruction of justice."

GS(3) Thunderbolt 3-16-07: Statement of Valerie Plame to the Waxman Committee

Hard Rain Journal 2-22-07: Corporatist News Media Still Shields Bush-Cheney from the Savage Truth on Plame, Iraq, Iran, Al Qaeda and Walter Reed

Hard Rain Journal 1-26-07: Should Cheney be the Direct Target of Congressional Investigation?

Hard Rain Journal 8-22-06: The Central Theme of Future Historians will be Betrayal, Just Ask Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, Spike Lee & Valerie Plame Wilson

Hard Rain Journal 7-4-06: Latest Report on Fitzgerald Investigation -- Bush Told Cheney to "Get It Out!"

Hard Rain Journal 6-13-06 (Continued): If Treason Occurs, But Everyone Pretends It Didn’t, Is It Still Treason?

Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Patrick Fitzgerald,Robert Novak, Bush, Cheney, Scott McClennan, Karl Rove, I.Lewis Libby, Richard Power, Words of Power


Hard Rain Late Night: Sheryl Crow -- Everyday is a Winding Road

Hard Rain Late Night: Sheryl Crow -- Everyday is a Winding Road



Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

Sheryl Crow,You Tube, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Journal: Friedman, McClellan & The Definition of Depravity

Image: Nero and the Roman Senate


Noun S: (n) corruption, degeneracy, depravation, depravity, putrefaction (moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles) "the luxury and corruption among the upper classes"; "moral degeneracy followed intellectual degeneration"; "its brothels, its opium parlors, its depravity"; "Rome had fallen into moral putrefaction" S: (n) depravity, turpitude (a corrupt or depraved or degenerate act or practice) "the various turpitudes of modern society" Definition of "depravity":

Hard Rain Journal: Friedman, McClellan & The Definition of Depravity

By Richard Power

Two recent statements -- one from former White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, and one from that darling war monger and class warrior, Tom Friedman -- highlight the depravity of the Beltwayistan political establishment, the US mainstream news media and the corporatist interests that both groupings pimp for.

In his kneel-and-tell book, What Happened, McClellan has confessed:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby," McClellan wrote. "There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff [Andrew Card] and the president himself." (Think Progress, 11-20-07)

That was yesterday's revelation.

Yes, Scott McCellan, may be one of those who aided and abetted in the betrayal of US secret agent Valerie Plame's identity (an act tantamount to treason, whether it is ever acknowledged as such or not) has confessed his role in the cover-up, and yet this morning, not a mention on the front pages of the New York Times or the Washington Post.

It should be headline, but it was not even below the fold.

What the New York Times did include, on its Sunday op-ed page, was Tom Friedman's latest "punditry":

I have no idea who is going to win the Democratic presidential nomination, but lately I’ve been wondering whether, if it is Barack Obama, he might want to consider keeping Dick Cheney on as his vice president. […]
And that brings me back to the Obama-Cheney ticket: When it comes to how best to deal with Iran, each has half a policy — but if you actually put them together, they’d add up to an ideal U.S. strategy for Iran. Dare I say, they complete each other. […]
In sum, Mr. Obama’s instinct is right — but he needs to dial down his inner Jimmy Carter a bit when it comes to talking to Iran, and dial up a bit more inner Dick Cheney. Tom Friedman, Channeling Dick Cheney, New York Times, 11-18-07 (Think Progress, 11-19-07)

Forget Friedman's role in selling you on the looting of the US economy under the guise of "fair trade and globlization." (For more on this aspect of his wet work, read David Sirota's brilliant Open Letter to Tom Friedman.)

Forget Friedman's role in selling you on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and then keeping you placated with his "another six months" spin (something so absurb that it added another word to our lexicon -- "a Friedman") while thousands more men and women of the US military were killed and maimed.

Just think about what it means that Friedman would invoke Cheney as some sort of example of political strength or clarity of strategic thinking.

Such a notion reveals Friedman's depravity, with a chilling finality.

Cheney?

Cheney, the man whose office, according to Patrick Fitzgerald's statement in open court, has "a dark cloud" hanging over it in regard to the betrayal of US secret agent Valerie Plame's identity?

Cheney, the man who cooked the intelligence on Iraq, and is doing so again on Iran?

Cheney, the man whose secret, pre-9/11 energy plans, drawn up with Ken Lay, divvied up the oil fields of Iraq?

Cheney, the man who, according to the sworn 9/11 commission testimony of Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, sat on his hands as a highjacked plane flew through Beltwayistan's restriced air space? (Was he hoping it was aimed at the Capitol Dome?)

Cheney, the man who threatened Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) with "dire consequences" if he opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq? (Wellstone died in a small plane crash shortly before the 2004 election, which he was certain to win.)

Cheney, the man who, as a member of Congress, voted against Martin Luther King Day?

Cheney, the man who, as a member of Congress, voted against a resolution to free Nelson Mandela from prison?

Cheney, who shot a fellow hunter in the face and then ducked the police for 24 hours?

Tom Friedman says Obama should dial down his "inner Jimmy Carter" and dial up his "inner Dick Cheney"?

Jimmy Carter wanted to get the US off of its desperate dependence on Middle Eastern oil, Jimmy Carter understood that there would be no peace without human rights.

Jimmy Carter understood the 21st Century a quarter of a century before it dawned.

Tom Friedman doesn't even understand it now.

Here, again, is the definition of "depravity":

Noun
S: (n) corruption, degeneracy, depravation, depravity, putrefaction (moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles) "the luxury and corruption among the upper classes"; "moral degeneracy followed intellectual degeneration"; "its brothels, its opium parlors, its depravity"; "Rome had fallen into moral putrefaction"
S: (n) depravity, turpitude (a corrupt or depraved or degenerate act or practice) "the various turpitudes of modern society"

Scott McClellan should be giving testimony to congressional investigators, rather than gearing up for the book tour circuit.

Cheney should be preparing to resign in disgrace in order to avoid impeachment.

And Tom Friedman? He should be wandering the "marketplace of ideas" in a sack cloth, begging for alms.

Unfortunately, instead of a Senate led by the likes of Frank Church (D-ID) and Sam Ervin (D-NC), we have a Senate misled by the likes of Charles Schumer ("D"-NY) and Dianne Feinstein ("D"-CA)

See also --

Hard Rain Journal 7-3-07: Joe Wilson -- "The commutation of (Libby's) sentence in and of itself is participation in obstruction of justice"

Words of Power #33: A Quarter-Century Ago, Jimmy Carter Warned of This Grim Period, His Prophetic Call was Not Heeded

Hard Rain Journal 4-18-07: India and the Dark Side of Globalization -- Thomas Friedman's Fairy Tales versus Arundhati Roy's Reality Tour

For an archive of Words of Power posts on 9/11, Terrorism, etc., click here.

For an archive of Words of Power posts on Corporate News Media Complicity, Power of Alternative Media, Propaganda & Freedom of Press, click here.

Scott McClellan, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Tom Friedman, Iran, Iraq, Bush, Valerie Plame, Cheney, , Richard Power, Words of Power


What Those At The Helm of Japan's Whaling Fleet Don't Understand

Image: Greenpeace


Speaking from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, currently standing by off the coast of Japan, expedition leader Karli Thomas said "This isn’t science – it’s business masquerading as science. This whaling program is stealing money from Japanese taxpayers, and robbing other countries of much-needed tourist income. The threatened humpbacks targeted by the whalers are part of thriving whale watching industries elsewhere. The whaling fleet must be recalled now. If it is not, we will take direct, non-violent action to stop the hunt." Greenpeace, 11-18-07

What Those At The Helm of Japan's Whale Fleet Don't Understand

By Richard Power

Life is a oneness, and that oneness is radiant and conscious.

Indeed, the whales are an extraordinary expression of the very sentience that we humans foolishly claim as our exclusive property.

The sentience of the whales has simply taken a different trajectory than our own.

And considering that the whales chose to live, swim, feed, mate and sing in the oceans that cover most of this planet, and we chose instead to pave the earth with concrete, replace its forests with shopping malls and mega-slums, and shed the blood of our fellow humans in order to amass fortunes and indulge fantasies; the sentience which sparks the whales could even be of a superior strain.

As we close in on the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, it is difficult to accept that so many of us do not grok this simple truth; i.e., it is difficult to accept that there is still a whaling industry.

Jaded Thea, an excellent environmentally focused blog, has done some posting on this issue, including a wonderful "Whale Ecomonics" haiku:

ancient sacred whale
somehow worth more in a can
than swimming at sea

Here is Greenpeace's statement on the embarking of Japan's whaling fleet:

The Japanese government whaling fleet has departed its home port of Shimonoseki, for its biggest hunt since the moratorium on commercial whaling came into being over twenty years ago. The fleet intends to kill more than 1,000 whales while in the Southern Ocean, including 50 endangered fin whales, 50 threatened humpback whales and 935 minke whales.
Speaking from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, currently standing by off the coast of Japan, expedition leader Karli Thomas said "This isn’t science – it’s business masquerading as science. This whaling program is stealing money from Japanese taxpayers, and robbing other countries of much-needed tourist income. The threatened humpbacks targeted by the whalers are part of thriving whale watching industries elsewhere. The whaling fleet must be recalled now. If it is not, we will take direct, non-violent action to stop the hunt. "
Greenpeace is collaborating with Pacific-based scientists through the Great Whale Trail project, demonstrating that whale research can be done effectively and non-lethally. The Great Whale Trail has been monitoring the location of tagged humpback whales as they migrate to the Southern Ocean from the Pacific. The Great Whale Trail website will also track the Japanese whaling fleet as it heads south. Greenpeace, 11-18-07

To participate in Greenpeace's struggle against the whalers, click here.

Environmental Security, Whaling, Japan, Whales, Greenpeace, Richard Power, Words of Power

Burma Crisis Update: Human Rights Watch Names Corporate Names, Calls for Targeted Sanctions Needed on Petroleum Industry

Image: An activist holds a poster of pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Ky during protests in Rangoon (Reuters)


Burma Crisis Update: Human Rights Watch Names Corporate Names, Calls for Targeted Sanctions Needed on Petroleum Industry

The United Nations Security Council should act to prohibit any new investment in Burma’s oil and gas fields and block company payments that help sustain Burma’s brutal military rule, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch said that until the Security Council imposes sanctions, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, India, the European Union, the United States and other countries that have economic ties to Burma should act to suspend any further development of Burma’s oil and gas sector. To encourage an end to ongoing repression, Human Rights Watch also called for targeted financial sanctions on companies owned and controlled by the Burmese military or whose revenues substantially benefit the military.

“Burma’s generals act as if they are immune from worldwide condemnation because they’re still getting cash from foreign-financed oil and gas projects,” said Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “It’s time to cut them off.”

In a detailed new compilation of information on foreign investment in oil and gas released today, Human Rights Watch identified 27 companies based in 13 countries as having investment interests in Burma’s oil and gas fields. Thirteen of those companies are wholly or partially owned by foreign governments, and these state-controlled companies are invested in 20 of the 30 projects currently underway. ...

In the absence of Security Council-imposed sanctions, Human Rights Watch called on governments to take unilateral and multilateral action to freeze bank accounts belonging to military-controlled companies and to block their financial transactions. In addition, it urged governments to require companies headquartered in their jurisdictions that have business ties to Burma to publicly and fully disclose all payments made to the Burmese military, directly or through the entities it controls, and where those payments are made.

Human Rights Watch pushed for robust banking sanctions as the centerpiece of an effort to cut off funds that are used to finance repression by Burma’s military. ...

Human Rights Watch also issued a selection of company statements about events in Burma. The companies typically said their investments would remain unaffected, irrespective of events in Burma. In several cases, they claimed it would be inappropriate to raise human-rights concerns or claimed that their projects brought benefits to the people of Burma. ...

“The companies have made it clear they won’t stand up for human rights on their own,” said Ganesan. “That's why their home governments need to step in and halt the flow of petrodollars that help prop up Burma’s military.”

The companies’ comments do not address the serious concerns that, so long as investments in this sector directly benefit Burma’s military leadership, they provide crucial financing that helps underwrite its abusive governance, or that revenues from oil and gas payments are currently used directly by the military and do not support social spending to meet Burma’s critical human needs.

For example:

Daewoo International of South Korea is the lead company in a consortium exploring and developing the lucrative offshore Shwe gas fields that are expected to greatly boost revenue to the SPDC. On September 28, 2007, Daewoo International said: “[These] are all long-time investments. They can’t be easily changed because of domestic issues. Politics is politics. Economics is economics.” On November 15, a Seoul court convicted the former CEO of Daewoo International and one of his colleagues, along with 12 executives from other companies, on charges that from 2002 to 2006 they illegally exported arms-manufacturing equipment and technology used to build a munitions factory in Burma.


PTT Public Company Ltd. of Thailand, which in addition to its ownership and operating interests in several fields is also the purchaser of the bulk of Burma’s gas, for export to Thailand, said on October 8, 2007: “We have invested in Burma over the past decade. Despite the political conflict, the benefits from the projects will go to people of both countries.”


Total of France, which is the lead company in a consortium for the Yadana project that generates significant revenues for the SPDC, said on September 26, 2007: “We are convinced that through our presence we are helping to improve the daily lives of tens of thousands of people who benefit from our social and economic initiatives.”


Chevron of the United States, which holds a minority interest in the Yadana project, said on October 2, 2007: “Our community development programs also help improve the lives of the people they touch and thereby communicate our values, including respect for human rights.”


Nippon Oil of Japan, a partner in the Yetagun project, which brings in major revenues, said on September 29, 2007: “We see the political situation and energy business as separate matters.”

Human Rights Watch, 11-19-07

Most Recent Burma-Related Words of Power Posts

In Burma & Sudan, Business As Usual -- What Must & Can Be Done Now!

Burma Crisis Update 11-10-07: Amnesty International on "Grave & Ongoing Human Rights Violations"; Alternate Media Vital to Resistance

Burma Crisis Update: An Open Letter to the Executives of Chevron

Burma Crisis Update: Two Weeks Into the Crackdown, China Has Not Tempered the Thugocracy's Hand; Chevron Has Not Even Slapped Its Wrist

Human Rights Update 10-6-07: Chevron, Condoleeza Rice & the Burmese Thugocracy

Human Rights Update: Blackwater, Burma, Darfur & You

Human Rights Watch to Business: "Keeping quiet while monks & other peaceful protesters are murdered & jailed is not ... constructive engagement."

Human Rights Update: Blackwater, Burma, Darfur & You

Hard Rain Journal 9-27-07: Aung San Suu Kyi was Elected in 1990, Al Gore was Elected in 2000 -- Consider What Has Befallen Both Countries Since

Chevron,
Daewoo International,
PTT Public Company, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma, Total Nippon Oil, Human Rights, Richard Power, Words of Power

Climate Crisis Update: Nobel Winners Deliver Important Messages as the Bali Summit Opens

Image: Earth at Night, NASA


Climate Crisis Update: Nobel Winners Deliver Important Messages as the Bali Summit Opens

By Richard Power

Last month, the Nobel Committee wisely bestowed the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Al Gore and the scientists of the UN's IPCC. Last week, on the eve of the Bali summit, which is perhaps humanity's last chance to get moving, both Nobel laureates delivered important messages; hopefully, the irresponsible currently occupying positions of responsibility will heed them --

For his part, Al Gore joined forces with Silicon Valley venture capitalists to forge ahead on the business front, offering to underwrite the development of green technologies: "I think the expertise that became concentrated here with the development of computing, chip technology, Internet technology and biotech ventures ... those skills turn out to be very applicable to the analysis and the development of early stage ventures in green tech and clean tech ... We are calling out to all the innovators and technologists and inventors to send us the best ideas they have," he said. San Francisco Chronicle, 11-13-07

As I know from my own personal experience, Silicon Valley changed the world once before, at lightening speed. Gore is betting it can do it again.

For their part, Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCCC issued the most damning and unequivocal statement yet: [Pachauri] said that since the panel began its work five years ago, scientists have recorded “much stronger trends in climate change,” like a recent melting of polar ice that had not been predicted. “That means you better start with intervention much earlier.”
How much earlier? The normally understated Pachauri warns:
“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” Climate Progess, 11-17-07

Here are excerpts from related news stories:

Following are findings of the U.N. climate panel in a 26-page summary about the risks of global warming issued in Valencia, Spain, on Saturday:
* OBSERVED CHANGES
"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level."
* CAUSES OF CHANGE
"Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in ... greenhouse gas concentrations" from human activities.
Global total annual greenhouse gas emissions from human activities have risen by 70 percent since 1970. Concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, far exceed the natural range over the last 650,000 years.
* PROJECTED CLIMATE CHANGES
Temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 Fahrenheit) and sea levels by between 18 cms and 59 cms (seven and 23 inches) this century.
Africa, the Arctic, small islands and Asian mega-deltas are likely to be especially affected by climate change. Sea level rise "would continue for centuries" because of the momentum of warming even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilised.
"Warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible". About 20-30 percent of species will be at increasing risk of extinction if future temperature rises exceed 1.5 to 2.5 Celsius.
* FIVE REASONS FOR CONCERN
-- Risks to unique and threatened systems, such as polar or high mountain ecosystems, coral reefs and small islands.
-- Risks of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.
-- Distribution of impacts -- the poor and the elderly are likely to be hit hardest, and countries near the equator, mostly the poor in Africa and Asia, generally face greater risks such as of desertification or floods.
-- Overall impacts -- there is evidence since 2001 that any benefits of warming would be at lower temperatures than previously forecast and that damages from larger temperature rises would be bigger.
-- Risks or "large-scale singularities", such as rising sea levels over centuries; contributions to sea level rise from Antarctica and Greenland could be larger than projected by ice sheet models.
* SOLUTIONS/COSTS
Governments have a wide range of tools -- higher taxes on emissions, regulations, tradeable permits and research. An effective carbon price could help cuts.
Emissions of greenhouse gases would have to peak by 2015 to limit global temperature rises to 2.0 to 2.4 Celsius over pre-industrial times, the strictest goal assessed. The costs of fighting warming will range from less than 0.12 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) per year for the most stringent scenarios until 2030 to less than 0.06 percent for a less tough goal. In the most costly case, that means a loss of GDP by 2030 of less than 3 percent. Reuters, 11-17-07

The crowd of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs making big bets on a global revolution in green technology added one more big name Monday: Al Gore.
The former Democratic vice president and recent Nobel Peace Prize winner announced he is joining the prestigious Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner in the firm's effort to finance global warming solutions. ...
"I think the expertise that became concentrated here with the development of computing, chip technology, Internet technology and biotech ventures ... those skills turn out to be very applicable to the analysis and the development of early stage ventures in green tech and clean tech," Gore said Monday in an interview with The Chronicle.
California's passage of the nation's first economy-wide limits on greenhouse gases also will make the state a testing ground to see which technologies - biofuels, hybrids, solar power plants, green building techniques - will prove most viable and cost effective, Gore said.
"We are calling out to all the innovators and technologists and inventors to send us the best ideas they have," he said.
Gore isn't the only one making the bet. Kleiner Perkins, best known for early investments that spawned Internet and biotech giants such as Google and Genentech, plans next year to spend one-third of its $600 million investment fund on green technology startups. Gore's role will be to advise the firm on which companies and technologies look most promising. ...
The idea behind the 59-year-old Gore becoming a Bay Area venture capitalist grew out of talks that began 11/2 years ago with John Doerr, a Kleiner Perkins partner and major Democratic donor who is a close friend of the former vice president.
In 2004, Gore co-founded Generation Investment Management, a global equities firm dedicated to investing in socially and ecologically sustainable companies, with Goldman Sachs executive David Blood. The firm, which Gore chairs, has $1.5 billion in investments. Gore, Doerr and Blood became convinced that Generation could forge an alliance with Kleiner Perkins that would benefit both firms. ... San Francisco Chronicle, 11-13-07

For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.

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Want to wake people up to the US mainstream news media's complicity in misinforming the public on global warming and climate change? Click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".

Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"

Want to join hundreds of thousands of people on the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions now? Click here.

Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio has released a witty and compelling compilation on the Top 100 Effects of Global Warming, organized into sections like "Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun" (e.g., "Goodbye to Pinot Noir," "Goodbye to Baseball," "Goodbye to Salmon Dinners," "Goodbye to Ski Vacations," etc.), "Global Warming Kills the Animals" (e.g., "Death March of the Penguins," "Dying Grey Whales," "Farwell to Frogs," etc.) and yes, "Global Warming Threatens Our National Security" (e.g., "Famine," "Drought," "Large-Scale Migrations," "The World's Checkbook," etc.) I urge you to utilize Top 100 Effects of Global Warming in your dialogues with friends, family and colleagues.

And don't forget to tune into Eco-Talk Radio on the air waves and/or in cyberspace.

Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Weather, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth,Laurie David, Stop Global Warming!,Greenpeace, IPCCC, The Eleventh Hour, Al Gore, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers , Bali, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Bob Dylan -- My Back Pages (w/ Neil Young, Roger McGuin, Eric Clapton, George Harrison & Tom Petty)

Hard Rain Late Night: Bob Dylan -- My Back Pages (w/ Neil Young, Roger McGuin, Eric Clapton, George Harrison & Tom Petty)



Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

Bob Dylan,You Tube, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

UN Millennium Goals Update: Sanitation is Another Vital Factor in the Shift to a Vibrant Green World

Image: UN Millennium Goals

UN Millennium Goals Update: Sanitation is Another Vital Factor in the Shift to a Vibrant Green World

By Richard Power

There is so much we take for granted.

Somalis are struggling to keep their families alive on ten liters of water a day, approximately "the same amount used to flush a toilet in an industrialized nation." (One World, 11-9-07)

But even in the developed countries, especially in the USA, water itself has already become a serious issue; and soon, sanitation, too, will be acknowledged as a serious issue.

Throughout the world, rapid and meaningful change is required.

Sustainable sanitation models must be provided for those who have nothing.

And those in the developed world who have lived as if there were was no consequences must shift to sustainable models as well.

To meet one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and halve the number of people without basic sanitation by 2015, the world must make a radical shift away from septic tanks and sewers, say experts and activists.
Gathering in New Delhi for the just concluded four-day World Toilet Summit (WTS)-2007, 400 sanitation experts from 44 countries agreed that they needed to work harder on designing toilets that suited the developing world and looked beyond ‘disposal oriented’ western systems. ...
‘’You cannot achieve the MDGs with sewers and septic tanks,’’ Pathak told IPS. ‘’Sewers need expensive infrastructure, high maintenance and large quantities of water to be effective.’’ ...
The U.N.-Habitat has recognised Sulabh’s cost-effective and appropriate sanitation system as a ‘Global Urban Best Practice’. The twin-pit system uses 1.5-2 litres of water per use in a flush toilet that is connected to two pits that allows recharging of the soil and composting, and a close-loop public toilet system attached to a bio-gas digester.
In fact, this is the only sanitation technology that meets the seven conditions for a sanitary latrine laid down by the World Health Organisation. These stipulate that a sanitary latrine should not contaminate surface soil, ground water or surface water. Excreta should not be accessible to flies or animals. There should be no handling of fresh excreta, or when this is unavoidable, kept to a bare minimum. There should be no odour or unsightliness and the methods used should be simple and inexpensive in construction and operation. "This is an on-site sanitation technology that can be implemented anywhere," Pathak said. ...
Globally 2.6 billion people, or one in three persons, lack access to proper sanitation, says the UNICEF/WHO mid-term review report on MDGs. More than half of them live in India and China. Africa and Latin America are the other regions that are lagging behind. Aparna Srivastava Reddy, ENVIRONMENT: Sanitation Beyond Septic Tanks and Sewers
By Aparna Srivastava Reddy, Inter Press Service, 11-6-07

Improvements in sanitation and sewerage systems can have a dramatic effect on reducing cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases, research has shown. The study, co-funded by the Wellcome Trust, has led scientists to call for action to improve urban sanitation as an effective way of improving health in developing countries.
According to the WHO, the number of cholera cases during 2006 was 236,896, with 6,311 deaths in 52 countries, a rise of 79% on the previous year. The importance of sanitation in preventing cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases was recognised in the Millennium Development Goals, which set a target of halving the number of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015. However, this target is unlikely to be achieved because the resources allocated to it are small. Part of the reason for this neglect of sanitation is the absence of rigorous evidence for its effectiveness in prevention of disease.
Now, in research published in the journal The Lancet, Professor Mauricio Barreto and colleagues from the Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil, have shown that urban sanitation is a highly effective health measure.
In 1997, the city of Salvador in Brazil implemented a city-wide sanitation project, known as Bahia Azul, or Blue Bay. Its objective was to increase the number of households with an adequate sewer system from 26% to 80%, including extending the sewerage network, improving water supply and capacity-building in ten smaller towns in the state. ... The researchers found that overall prevalence of diarrhoea fell by 22%. However, in high-risk areas, where sanitary conditions were poorest, overall prevalence fell by double this amount, down 43%... Science Daily, 11-10-07

For a directory of Words of Power UN Millennium Goals Updates, click here.

UN, UN Millennium Development Goals, Sanitation, Cholera,diarrhoea, Health, Sustainability, Poverty, Richard Power, Words of Power


Sustainability Update 11-17-07: The Distance from Southern California to the Azawak Valley? Near & Getting Nearer with Every Drop of Water.

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Sustainability Update 11-17-07: The Distance from Southern California to the Azawak Valley? Near & Getting Nearer with Every Drop of Water.

By Richard Power

The planet as a whole, and especially the USA, would be facing a water crisis even without the devastating impact of global warming, but with global warming and the resultant climate changes factored in, the situation has gotten very serious very fast, and yet, as a body politic, we are in deep denial, and attempting to burrow even deeper into it in the 2008 presidential campaign.

The western USA is undergoing its worst drought in 500 years. (Yes, worse than the Dust Bowl era.)

The drought gripping the West could be the biggest in 500 years, with effects in the Colorado River basin considerably worse than during the Dust Bowl years, according to scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey. ... The Colorado River in particular has been in a drought for the entire decade, cutting an important source of water for millions of people across the West, including Southern California. (The full report is online at water.usgs.gov/pubs/fs/2004/3062/.) MSNBC, 2-22-07

Likewise, drought is also savaging the southern USA.

With the South in the grip of an epic drought and its largest city holding less than a 90-day supply of water, officials are scrambling to deal with the worst-case scenario: What if Atlanta's faucets really do go dry? So far, no real backup exists. /em> Associated Press, 10-20-07

Of course, "drought" is a term that implies a condition that is temporary. And the truth is that at least in regard to the southwestern USA, this particular drought will not end; and an area already a desert, and stressed by water shortages, is going to be plunged into very grim circumstances.

Consider the plight of the Azawak.

The Azawak people are amongst the world’s poorest. Nine months of the year they have no water. These people are literally dying of thirst. During the rains ponds store the water. When these dry up they dig holes around the dried ponds to find any water that has seeped into the ground. If the rains are good this can give water for one or two months. When these dry up it is a time of extreme hardship and they will travel up to 32 miles to get water. Sometimes entire villages have to be abandoned because of the need to find water. A New Green Earth

Sooner than later, the denial that the US political establishment has indulged in will lead to ugly circumstances, limited options and desperate measures.

Meanwhile, do for yourself and your loved ones what your government and the fourth estate are not doing for you, learn all you can about sustainability and the climate crisis in general, and water issues in particular, and then act on your own to conserve and to prepare for emergencies.

And, as New Green Earth urges, help the Azawak people.

At present there is little help for these people but there is clean water available in aquifers at an average depth of 650-1300 feet below ground. Amman Imman is drilling for this precious source of life for these people. They are a non profit organization bringing water to those who have none. Amman Imman is dedicated to improving and saving lives among the poorest and most abandoned populations of the world by supplying permanent sources of water to the people living in the Azawak Valley, West Africa.

Amman Imman has some worthy partners, including International Montessori Council, "Wells of Love" Montessori, Yale University UNICEF Chapter, Yale African American Students Association and the Yale School of Public Health.

RECENT RELATED POSTS:

Sustainability Update 8-14-07: Water, Water

Sustainability Update 7-29-07: Geopolitics & Sustainability have Taken Over Your Future -- Whether You Choose to Acknowledge It or Not

GS(3) Thunderbolt 7-19-07: In Darfur and Japan -- The Earth is Singing A Promise & A Warning, But Who is Listening?

Hard Rain Journal 4-19-07: Sustainability Update -- Simple Truths

Hard Rain Journal 1-13-07: UN Millennium Goals and Sustainability Update -- Does Burkina-Faso Offer a Glimpse into Our Urban Future?

Hard Rain Journal 11-10-06: Sustainability and Climate Change Update -- Water, Its Unhealthiness and Its Increasing Scarcity, Demands Urgent Attention

Hard Rain Journal 9-29-06: Sustainability Update -- Freedom to Flourish and Water to Survive, Both are Vanishing...What Will You Do?

Hard Rain Journal 9-18-06: Update on Sustainability -- There is Peril Ahead, Whether Water is Privatized, Militarized or Simply Ignored for Too Long

Hard Rain Journal 8-18-06: Water, Water Nowhere, & Only A Few Drops to Sell --- An Update on the Water Aspect of the Global Sustainability Crisis

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

Global Warming Water Wars Water Crisis Sustainability Rivers UN Millennium Goal, Climate Change Environmental Security, Azawak, Niger, USA, Africa, Drought, Words of Power